Eisen slightly squatted down to take a look at the black rabbit sitting on Sky's shoulder, before moving his eyes back to the now completely blank page that it was summoned from. "Sky, is that some sort of magic?" The old man asked curiously, and Sky quickly nodded.
"Mhm, it is. Or rather, it's my element, so it's not something that you can directly learn as a spell or something. I can take the essence from stories and turn them into creatures, although each story is boiled down to one creature, and I can't choose it's skillset and looks either. And no matter how often I summon something from one story, it's always the same creature as well. This little guy here is from the story 'The Rabbit's Paw'." Sky explained, seeming somewhat exhausted, before the rabbit jumed back onto the white page before dissolving into words again that once more covered it completely.
"But it drains a lot of mana… I have more than usual because I'm a Fey-kin, but elements still drain a lot of mana, so I can't really do much like this because of my low level." The boy explained, while Eisen nodded in understanding and handed Sky a small bottle filled with a mana potion.
"Got it… But why didn't you tell me before? We could have bought some more books at Ornier before leaving." Eisen said as he watched Sky quickly drink the potion before handing the bottle back to the old man.
"Ah, that's because to be able to use my element, I need to know every part of the story in and out, so I need a lot of time to read, and I didn't know if we'd really have that. So I didn't want to impose on anyone by just sitting around and reading all day…" Sky said with a light smirk before looking down at the book he was holding, which gave Eisen an idea.
"Hm… Do you have any stories that you especially like to use with your element?" Eisen asked curiously, and Sky began thinking for a little while.
"Well… A few, yeah. The Rabbit's Paw is definitely one. The rabbit summoned through it is really quick and if you're not careful, you'll lose sight of it basically instantly."
"Got it. Make a list of the stories out of the different books you have that you especially like, and then borrow the books to me at some point. I'll make something neat for you." Eisen told Sky with a quick wink, before the Fey-kin nodded while smiling, before climbing back to the front bench of the carriage, looking back at Kiron.
"That reminds me, Kiron, do you have an element as well?" Eisen asked the half-dragon, who quickly nodded.
"Ah, yes I do, M'Lord. Sorry for not informing you of all my abilities before now. My Magical Element is that of 'Devouring Crystal Flames', something I gained through my draconic bloodline. However, as I am a physical combatist rather than a magical one, I have not spent much time indulging in using this element, and have not yet realized its true reason for existing." Kiron explained as he held forward his hand with his palm upward, before something like a crystal growth slowly formed and continuosly changed and shifted, as if breaking and regrowing constantly, each new crystal devouring those that were there before.
"Huh, doesn't that kind of look like it's eating and replacing? Kiron, what happens when you cast a spell on something with your element?" After the old man asked this curiously, Kiron suggested that they quickly stopped the carriage for a short demonstration, which Eisen wholeheartily agreed to, asking the two siblings in the front to stop the carriage for a little bit.
Soon enough, Eisen and Kiron were standing in front of a dead tree-trunk, and Kiron carefully threw a ball of his element onto the wood, before Eisen could observe what was going on as he activated his truth-seeing eyes to be able to see the mana.
First, there was still some very dark, greenish mana around the piece of wood, but what Eisen was currently paying attention to was the light-grey mana that was slowly but steadily growing as it spread across the wood's surface, climbing into every small crack.
Like that, Eisen could observe an interesting phenomenon.
The mana of the tree-trunk was slowly being replaced by the mana from Kiron's Crystal Flames, and before Eisen could come to a conclusion, Kiron explained his understanding of the element so far.
"If you do not know, Metallic dragons can all consume the metal that they are described to be. A gold dragon can eat gold, a steel dragon can eat steel, and a crystal dragon can eat crystals. And as I am a half-crystal dragon, I can consume and live off of different crystals as well, albeit not exclusively. As I priorly thought my draconic side to be superior to my human side, I had tried to solely take in numerous crystals that I would come across, not living off of regular foods at all.
During that time, I had also gained this element, so I do believe it has to do with exactly that, considering the part of 'Devouring' in my element's name."
While scratching his beard, Eisen nodded curiously as he leaned in closer toward the crystal flames, watching as they slowly took over the wood. And with exactly that thought, Eisen got an idea, turning to Kiron with a grin.
"Alright, for now, deactivate your element. But the next time you encounter a monster, I want you to try and cast the magic on that monster and let your flames completely devour it. Maybe that will give you a hint to what your element is supposed to be for." Eisen said with a smile as the two of them climbed back onto the carriage, with Kiron directly climbing onto the roof, before Bree and Sky continued driving.
And coincidentally, the moment that the carriage began moving again, Komer's body slowly gained back its color, signaling Eisen that he just logged back on.
"Well hello there, Komer. Perfect timing!" Eisen laughed loudly as he helped the young merchant stand back up, but instead of greeting Eisen back, Komer simply stood there. And before the old man could ask what was wrong, Komer already answered the unasked question.
"You saw it, right? The trailer?" Komer asked with a serious expression, before Eisen slowly nodded in confusion. There wasn't really a reason for Komer to be upset with it, after all the only ones shown were the originals, right? So what-
"Your brothers, huh..?" Eisen asked out loud, immediately after realizing who else was shown in the trailer. And even though their faces weren't shown, anyone that knew of the event would know who that angel was. It was obviously quite a humiliating moment for Cial and Merc, and knowing that their loss was shown to millions and millions of people all over the world must have made them incredibly mad.
After seeing that Komer slowly nodded, Eisen placed his hand on the young man's shoulder. "Alright kid, tell me what happened." Eisen said reassuringly, jerking his head toward the bench so that the two of them could sit down there, and Komer began telling the old man what was going on.
It seemed like Komer's two brothers were already extremely pissed off when the event in Ornier actually happened in the first place, but it got only far, far worse over time. At some point, they seemed to have figured out that Komer was working together with Eisen, trying to make their younger brother 'spit out' what he knew about him.
But not wanting to do anything of the sort, Komer held out, even after quite literally being beaten up by the always quite triggerhappy Merc.
However, after the trailer came out and his brothers saw it, they were both far, far angrier than before. And even though Cial tried keeping his cool outwardly, he was obviously just as pissed as Merc was.
"They've got some sketchy contacts, especially Merc. I'm worried that he's going to send someone after you or something. And especially here, both of them won't stop at anything to get some kind of bullshit revenge on you." Komer sighed loudly as he buried his face in his hands, before Eisen lightly slapped his back.
"Don't worry Komer, I won't let anyone do me in, and I'm very happy to hear that you didn't tell them about me. But for the next week at the very least, you won't have to worry about me, I'll have a policewoman at my house for a while." The old man laughed as he stood up, standing tall in front of Komer.
"For now, let's just not think about those two, alright? After all, you have to concentrate on making Starlight the greatest merchant company there is. While your brothers are concentrating on me right now, you can do what you're all actually here for. And in the meantime, how about we work on some products now?" Eisen suggested, and Komer nodded in reply. "Yeah, let's do that..." The young man smiled softly, obviously still shaken up but somewhat in a better mood than before.
After that, Eisen reached into the tube filled with the magic wood and used his truth-seeing eyes to inspect the one that he grabbed in order to make a good item to compare it to the other wand he made before.
[Low-Grade Wizard's Oak]
[Quality – High][Rank – 2]
[Description] Regular oak wood that has taken in large amounts of pure mana, transforming it into Wizard's Oak.
"Perfect! It ranked up and became Low-Grade Wizard's Oak." Eisen exclaimed happily after reading through the status window. The Soul-Generators seemed to work far more smoothly than expected.
Excited to see how well this staff would end up working with that being the case, Eisen sat down in front of the worktable and grabbed his carving knife.
What he made then was basically an exact copy of the wand he made before, since Eisen wanted to have a pure base to compare simply the effect that the materials themselves had on the finished item.
And soon enough, Eisen managed to finish his second wand.
[Simple Low-Grade Wand]
[Quality – Perfect][Rank - 2]
[Description] A simple wand made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has been made out of Low-Grade Wizard's Oak, so it has only a small effect on cast magic
[Effect] +10 INT
"Oh, interesting, interesting!" Eisen exclaimed with a smile after seeing the large increase of the effect that this wand had. "Let's try this out for a little bit then."
After Eisen said this, he lightly held the wand with the tips of his fingers, before concentrating on moving his mana into the wand. It somehow felt like it was sucking his mana into the wand, but not in a bad way in the slightest. It wasn't as if the wand was stealing or draining his mana, it was simply making sure that it had enough mana to be properly used.
With an excited smile, Eisen then continued manipulating his mana, feeling an immediate change in how he did so. It moved far more smoothly out of the staff than it did out of his skin, incredibly so, actually. If mana being released through his skin was seen as water dripping through cloth, then using the wand was simply like water pouring out of your tap.
It was flowing out of his body, into the wand, and out into the air in an utterly different way, and he had to get used to it for a while. And because of that, Benjamin continued to play around a little bit, simply using the general release of his mana out of the wand to draw lines into the air, until he remembered what he saw in the trailer, how Xenia was drawing things similar to enchantment circles into the air.
Curious to see what would happen, Eisen began to use this staff and his mana to simply draw something up, a very simply water enchantment, the same as that he had put into the bottom of the self-filling cups, just edited in a way that would support an image of it being in mid-air instead of on a flat surface.
And soon enough, the moment that Eisen finished this enchantment circle, a stream of water began to form in the air and flowed down on the ground. Immediately, Eisen placed a bucket underneath so that he wouldn't flood the carriage, not even noticing the notification that was now floating in the corner of his eye.
[Sorcery Skill Learned]