Just like the day before, Eisen left the smithy together with Denmir while talking about this and that.
"I'll see ya tomorrow, old-timer." The Dwarf waved at Eisen while he was walking away, back up the slope with his new items. He couldn't just leave them lying around somewhere, but it was also a hassle to carry them with him all the time. Thus, he decided on two things.
First, Eisen would create a weapon tomorrow as well as a small box for his Cooking Knife so that it wouldn't be just loosely lying in his pocket or cut up his pants' fabric.
Second, after creating the weapon he would go on to learn Tailoring and hopefully manage to create a simple bag the same day, and maybe some clothes as well. Sure, the ones he was wearing at the time fit him perfectly, but because of the fabric they were made of were pretty uncomfortable in the long run. Not to speak of the fact that he has been wearing them for about three in-game days now. And because of the game's realism, they were slowly getting dirtier and dirtier.
Whatever the case may be, for now, Eisen decided to meet with Morrom and see how he was doing, and maybe ask him where he could find Belrim to also thank him for being such a big help when he first arrived in Melroe.
Eisen made his way to Everything Magic, Morrom's Magic-related shop, and stepped through the door.
"Hey, Morrom! Are you here?" Eisen yelled when he noticed the store's front was empty and walked over to the door leading to the back. Before he could even open it, the door opened on its own and a young man with messy black hair stepped through. Morrom was wearing some kind of goggles and it and his face were covered in pitch-black soot.
"Yeah? Did something happen?" He asked, turning his head to look around, "Eh? Did I work until the middle of the night again? Why's it so dark?"
Eisen sighed out loud and looked down at Morrom. "No, Morrom, it's still day. The sun is setting, but it's still day."
"Huh? Eisen? Wait, if it's not night… did I go blind through my experiments?! Not again!"
"Morrom, your goggles are dirty. Just take them off. Also… Again?"
Completely ignoring Eisen's question, Morrom stopped moving as if petrified and his face flushed a deep red. Slowly, he raised his hands and pulled the goggles off his face, hanging them around his neck.
"S-Sorry. Well, Eisen, nice to see you again! What brings you here?" Morrom asked, slowly wiping the soot off his face.
In response, Eisen scratched his beard and smiled, "Well, there's one reason. For now, how I told you the other day, I just want to learn different crafts, but after that, I wanted to see if I could learn magic related things. You seem to be selling a lot of different items made with it, right?"
"Ah, of course! How the name of my shop implies, I'm selling pretty much every type of item that has to do with magic. I enchant items, make alchemical potions, and also try to see how I can implement direct magic into items. That's actually what I was just doing… I… kinda lost control when trying to implement the explosive qualities of a fireball into an arrowhead…"
Eisen widened his eyes in surprise, already thinking of what could be possible when combining magic with items. "Sounds interesting… If you don't mind, I would like you to show me how to do those things in a few days, maybe in a week?"
The Half-Dwarf Half-Elf simply nodded with a smile on his face, "Of course! Seems like fun finally having someone with me here! There are not that many people in this town that are interested in Magic as much as I am… Heh…" Morrom chuckled softly and scratched the back of his head, his smile widening, and then looks back up at Eisen, "But do you know how to use Mana already?"
Eisen simply shook his head, "No, and that's why I came a week in advance. I wanted to see if you have something for me to read up on? Crafting is in my body, and I just know how to use it, but this mana just seems too foreign. I would like to practice a bit beforehand."
With a smirk, Morrom's ears begin to twitch back and forth a slight bit and he moved forward toward one of the bookshelves standing at the side of the room. He looked through a few of them and shook his head until he pulled one of them out and brought it out to Eisen. The book was neatly leatherbound and grandly decorated with golden stitches running across it like a frame.
After blowing some dust off of it in a very cliché way, Morrom began explaining. "This is a book that explains the process of Mana Manipulation, as well as a bunch of basic training methods. It would be easier to teach you by showing you, but since you don't seem to have the time for that, this is your best bet for now."
Eisen nodded his head and grabbed the book, flipping through it. On a few pages there seemed to be illustrations, although most of it was written text.
"Thank you, Morrom! This will be a great help! Do you want to go for Dinner at the Inn again?" Eisen asked with a smile, but Morrom only shook his head.
"Sorry, I would love to, but I need to continue my work for now. The only way I can run this place is through investors at the moment, and if I don't regularly show them new creations they'll stop funding me. So I need to finish that exploding arrow, or else I'm done for. I'll tell you when I have time, and this time it's on me!"
"Haha, I like the way you think!" Eisen laughed loudly and slapped Morrom on the back. "I guess I'll leave now then so you can continue working. Ah, do you know where I can meet Belrim?"
"Hmm… usually, around this time he's down at the mine, working the night shift. You might meet him at a bar in the morning. Usually, he goes to the one in your Inn."
"Thank you! I'll see you around!" With a smile, Eisen stepped out of the shop and decided to make his way to the Inn so that he can begin reading up on Mana Manipulation.
After eating Dinner, he paid for his room and made his way up there. Eisen placed his Storage boxes, Knife, coin-bag, as well as the introduction booklet he got from Ari onto the nightstand and sat down on the bed with his new book.
Eisen flipped it open onto the first page and immediately began reading. The Introduction mainly explained what mana actually is, and how important it is for any living being's body.
Since this was pretty similar to the concept of, for example, Ki, which Eisen learned about while traveling Asia, he understood this easily. According to this book, Mana can also be described as 'Life Force', something that flows within anyone's body as if it was their blood. Since mana is a type of energy, it can be expulsed from one's body, potentially creating the phenomenon called Magic. However, if one wanted to do this, they had to have control over their mana, which is not something easy to do.
The rest of the introduction spoke about famous Magicians of the past, especially about the first person that discovered magic, although they were mentioned as if common knowledge, so Eisen couldn't really find out many details about them.
Thus, he simply moved on. The first real chapter explained how someone should feel the Mana within them. It was described as hot energy filling out their whole body at times, while at other times it was focused onto a single spot, moving along with the flow of someone's energy. After Morrom used magic on his body, he kept feeling this energy all the time, so he wasn't worried about that. This was the only way he was able to pretty much instantly get the Tool Connection skill, after all.
Then, in the second chapter, there was an explanation on how to control this mana. The first exercise was to change how it acted within his body. Change it back and forth from filling his whole body, and then being compressed as much as possible. As a followup, he was supposed to move the compressed mana through his body.
Eisen decided to test this out and concentrated. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths, trying to feel his Mana inside of him, filling out every part of his body. When he felt like he had a grasp on the consistency of this energy, he imagined an invisible border forming at the place of his skin, slowly moving further inside of himself, shrinking constantly. Once he got to his limit of compressing his mana, there was a tiny copy of Eisen made out of pure mana inside of him. But since the excersize said to form it into a sphere, he tried to slowly change its shape into one.
The Mana, now in the shape of a perfect sphere, was pushed toward Eisen's right hand, now basically sitting directly underneath his palm. Slowly, trying not to lose grasp of his control, he opened his eyes so that he could continue reading the next step: Mana Expulsion.
Following the instructions, Eisen concentrated further on the mana sphere, slowly pushing it through his skin like it was a thin membrane. At first, it stung, and Eisen had to grit his teeth so that he wouldn't lose concentration, but after a short, while he felt a part of the mana under his palm exit, while the rest instantly exploded out, filling his body out once more.
[Mana Manipulation Skill Learned]
Immediately, Eisen opened his eyes, looking at the round, tiny sphere of glowing white light.
"Oho? This tiny thing looks interesting." Eisen muttered out and kept concentrating on the sphere.
He felt it and compared it to the Mana still inside of his body. Mana that kept swirling around his body, wrapped around every part of him. His Brain, Lungs, Blood vessels, up to his heart, that was beating slowly and calmly. Then, a change happened in the Sphere of Mana hovering above his hand. Slowly, it began pulsing in the pace of his heartbeat, expanding and retracting a little bit each time. He felt his life as part of this energy, and this energy as part of his life, of this new body inside of this game.
[You feel your Mana pulse with life. +1 INT]
However, surprised by this sudden notification, Eisen lost his concentration and all of the mana that made up the sphere instantly dissipated.
Eisen didn't mind, though, since he decided this would be a good time to end his practice for the day. For whatever reason, he felt extremely tired after manipulating his mana. He only realized why when he opened his status for a second.
[Eisen]
[Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][Occupation - None][Level - 4]
[HP - 210][MP - 20/150]
[STR - 19][END - 18][AGI - 16][INT - 12][WIS - 12]
[Titles]
-[Original of the Mechanical Arts]
-[Limitbreaker]
[Skills]
-[A Dwarf's Hands][Rank - 0][Level - 1]
-[A Giant's Strength][Rank - 0][Level - 1]
-[Appraisal][Rank - 0][Level - 99]
-[Blacksmithing][Rank - 1][Level - 36]
-[Mana Manipulation][Rank - 0][Level - 4]
-[Tool Connection][Rank - 0][Level - 91]
-[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 29]
It seemed like during this short practice, just by creating this tiny sphere, Eisen expended nearly all of his Mana. Glad to know what would happen if his MP neared zero, and annoyed that this is the limit of what he could do, Eisen unclothed and laid down in bed to sleep.
