After confirming that each of the Golem Dolls worked properly, Eisen carved his crafter's sigil on the underside of their right foot, just so that he placed it somewhere while not being too noticable.
"Alright, all of you will now listen to the command of anyone in this carriage." Eisen commanded them, and immediately the Golem dolls seemed to slowly and clunkily nod, before Eisen looked over to Kiron, Komer, Caria and Melissa who had been watching curiously. "Can one of you try commanding them? Komer, maybe? You'll be selling them, so that might be good."
Slightly surprised, the Merchant nodded excitedly. "Alright… Sit down." He said, and immediately all twenty of the dolls sat down on their wooden butts. With a smile, Komer leaned in closer. "This is kind of cool, if I'll be honest… If we ever open an actual shop somewhere, do you think we could have Golem Employees?" He asked while scratching his cheek, and Eisen simply nodded.
"Hmm, I don't see why not, really. They would definitely be good for most common work, and if my skill keeps ranking up, it should be possible to have them sort shelves and stuff."
"That would be really cool, yeah!" Komer said with awe in his voice when thinking about the idea of that. To Eisen it seemed like he really liked things like robots. And the moment that this word crossed his mind, he got a great idea, that he would only be able to work on in the future.
"Hmm, I guess I'll start working on some more golems at some point…" Eisen said, trying to think of possible designs already, that also included different crafting skills. If he could do all of that, it would be the perfect way to make large amounts of different things without having each item just lie around everywhere. First though, Eisen turned back to Komer to explain the way they would sell these.
"Alright, what we'll be doing is that we're simply selling these, and tell the dolls to allow the person that bought it to command it. That way, the one that bought it can decide who can use it and who can't. I'll write some small pieces of paper as instructions as well to hand away with them so that everyone knows how to use them." He explained, before Komer nodded slowly.
"That's not too complicated, so alright. What else will you be making? Some more weapons again, or more toys? The small mana crystal tools that you made seemed to be quite popular in Ornier." Komer said as he was remembering back onto the sales that he made back then, and Eisen began scratching his beard.
"Hmm, I was actually about to ask that. What do you think we should sell, or rather, what would you prefer to sell? After all, I don't want to dictate what you are known for."
"Oh no, don't worry! You make so many amazing things that are all different to each other in so many ways, so I couldn't possibly decide. So I chose for Starlight to be a Merchant's company that simply sells everything. So you can just make whatever you feel like, and I'll sell it." Komer somewhat protested at Eisen's suggestion, so the old man nodded with a smile.
"I see. Well, thank you for letting me do so, then. But since we are going to visit a town full of magicians, I would guess that there is a large amount of crafters with magic-related crafting occupations as well, such as enchanters or alchemists, so selling things like the small mana crystal tools probably won't work well, especially since my skill rank isn't actually all that high yet. I think it would be a better idea to make things specifically targeted toward magicians."
This quick explanation seemed to make the group somewhat curious at what Eisen was planning, so Kiron quickly asked. "That would of course make sense, but what is it that you have in mind, M'Lord?"
"It's quite simple, really. Komer's brother Cial had a staff, and only then did I really realize that Magicians should also have some kind of weapon. So I bought another book when I went to the bookstore about different types of tools and weapons, and there are two large things for magicians. Staffs and wands. The book doesn't describe how they're made, but I'm sure our hoards of knowledge in the front there will know, at least roughly. And on top of that, I want to try something else out as well, but I'm not sure how well it is going to work. I want to make a grimoire, or at least try to find out if that's possible at all."
With this, the group reacted with even more curiosity, but Eisen simply chuckled. "I'll test that out at some point, but first I want to do things that I know can be done before wasting time with something that doesn't." He then explained, letting his companions settle down again, before further explaining his plans and starting to get back to work.
For now, Eisen wanted to continue working on the Golem dolls. He repeated the whole process four more times, until he had a total of 100 of these small Golem Dolls standing in front of him, each set of 20 with a slightly different type of wood used as a base, some darker, while others were a bit lighter in color, but all of them were equally durable.
Now that Eisen was done with these, he set the Golem Dolls aside and started working on his next project, that was as mentioned staffs and wands, for which he chose to take a seat in the front with Bree and Sky who had been driving for the past few hours, simply talking about different things and trying to catch up with each other more.
"Hello there, you two. Having fun?" Eisen asked them as he took the reigns from Bree to let her relax a little bit, and she immediately nodded at him.
"Mhm! It's super fun~!" She exclaimed happily, and Sky simply agreed. "Yeah, it really is. I didn't expect it to be this much fun, if I'll be honest." With bright smiles, the Fey-Kin siblings both looked up at Eisen, who then simply began asking the questions he had.
"Alright, I'm glad to hear that. And I think you heard that I wanted to make staffs and wands, right? So does either of you know how they are really made?" Eisen asked this, and they both thought for a bit, before Bree nodded.
"Yeah, I think I do. It's usually something made of wood that's been absorbing so much mana that it changed into something else." She explained, before Eisen looked at her in surprise.
"That's possible? Materials can just change into another one if enough mana is added?"
"Mhm, that's the case in Melroe, remember? Mythril is originally silver, and through the large underground mana source, that silver absorbed the mana and turned into mythril. Changing a material takes a lot of mana, though… It takes a lot less mana to make magical wood than it does to make mythril, but it's still a lot." "And how much would that be? Just when taking pure MP as an example so that I get an idea."
"Hmm… about 100 Thousand, maybe?" She explained, and immediately Eisen began to think about how to best make or buy magical wood, until he remembered something.
"Erm, Bree, where did you say mana was generated in someone's body?" He asked, and Bree tilted her head to the side in confusion. "In your soul… why?"
With a grin, Eisen turned around and looked at his backpack inside the carriage, before looking back at her. "Because I just got an amazing idea. Mind if I give the reigns back to one of you?" Eisen asked, and Sky happily took them from him, before the old man stepped back in through the window in the front of the carriage before immediately grabbing his backpack, taking out all of the blank soul stones that he had. If this didn't worked, then it would be an amazing asset.
But first, Eisen needed to figure out how to best drain the mana generated inside of these stones, if there was any at all.
For that, just as a prototype test, Eisen reshaped a mana crystal to be completely flat so that he could properly carve an enchantment on it. It was simply the type of enchantment that he always used when he needed something to supply itself with mana, just this time in a somewhat more aggressive manner, simply 'stealing' mana instead of 'taking' it.
Just to simply try out if this worked, Eisen made another small flame enchantment that would take the mana that the other one stole to activate itself as well, but it seemed like just nothing happened. The enchantments in itself were fine, Eisen knew that, but it seemed like they simply couldn't access the mana that was inside the soul stone.
"Hmm… Hey, does anyone of you know if I can just simply drill this thing open? Or will it explode or anything like that?" Eisen asked, and the one to answer was Kiron.
"Ah, I think that M'Lord may be able to simply open it, yes, but if you are not careful, the soul may dissipate." The half-dragon explained, and Eisen looked at him with surprise.
"I see, thanks for that information. Just curious though, how do you know that?" Eisen asked, and Kiron's answer did actually seem quite obvious in retrospect.
"I do have one of these as well near the mana crystal acting as my heart, so I do know a little bit, at least." He told his lord, who frowned with a light grin.
"And why didn't you tell me anything about them back when I was trying to figure out what these can do?" Eisen asked, and Kiron simply looked at him with a complicated expression.
"You didn't ask me, or mentioned that you want to find that out at all. Sorry, M'Lord."
Eisen sighed out loudly as he felt like slapping himself. Of course someone that was technically a monster would know best about things related to all monsters. "Alright, sorry about that. I'll ask you things like that next time, then. So I can just make a hole into it, as long as I make sure that the soul won't escape?"
"Yes, as far as I know. And you shouldn't worry, M'Lord, I am fine. But I will try my best to assist you with all you need to do." Kiron explained, and Eisen nodded at him thankfully, before starting to continue his work.
The way that Eisen would do this now was quite simple. He would reshape part of the mana crystal with the mana-stealing enchantment on it to be like a thin needle, and then push it against the soul stone while transmuting the solid part on the outside of it to part away ever so slightly while Eisen pierced the inside of the soul stone, and immediately as he did so, the flame enchantment placed down next to him reacted and a flame shot out, leaving Eisen to do nothing but grin.
So now, he quickly began working on the actual item using this exact system, carefully transmuting the crystal more to have the enchanted surface be the 'top', while the soul stone would be encased in a small cylinder with multiple of these mana crystal needles piercing into the blank soul in the center. It would probably be possible to make something far more efficient, but as this was Eisen's first try at something like this, he would still say that it was a huge success.
[Soul Generator]
[Quality - High][Rank - 0]
[Description] A simple battery made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen, generating mana by draining the mana directly out of a blank soul.
[Effect] Generates 1000 MP per hour
Surprised, Eisen read through the window floating in front of him. Why was this only Rank 0? His enchanting skill was at rank 2, so this didn't make sense in the slightest… But soon enough, Eisen found the reason out.
[Soul Engineering Skill learned]