With a serious expression, Ailren stared at Eisen, who looked back at the Ancient Dragon with a frown, before the old craftsman sighed loudly. "With 'Path of Yin' you probably mean my 'Golden-Eyed Demon' Title, right?" He asked before Ailren quickly nodded, and Bolremgar jumped off of Eisen's shoulder, rapidly transforming into a different form.
Now, his body was that of a human's, just a bit younger than Ailren. "Oh? A Demon candidate walking on the path of yin? How'd a guy like that end up as your champion, Aylrentyrth?"
"That's exactly what I'm trying to find out right now." The Gold Dragon responded before Eisen grabbed the backpack he was wearing and took out the three shards from Kirisho's amulet.
"It's complicated, but it mostly started with these shards. So that I could scare the people that took these into giving me the shards instead of having to fight them for it, I used my Elemental full-body transformation. My element is a mixture of Fire and Earth, and when I transformed my eyes, I also had the Truth-Seeing Eyes skill I got from Ailren active, they were burning in golden flames. Then later, I got into a fight with some other people and ended up accidentally creating a scene. That title is the result of that. I didn't intend to get that title; I didn't even know about it." Eisen explained to Ailren, before he sighed in relief, seemingly to immediately believing that story.
"I see, so it was something like that, huh? I was unsure, considering that large concentration of Yin Energy you are carrying with you," He said. Before Bolremgar looked over at Ailren confused.
"Huh? Are you believing that guy... just like that? And even then, why's he even calling you 'Ailren'? Isn't that kind of disrespectful to an elder like you?"
"Who are you calling an elder, Bolremgar? You are merely 100 years younger than me, are you not?" Ailren asked his draconic companion, who sighed loudly. "So what? For someone like him, 100 years is a lifetime!" Bolremgar exclaimed, before surprisingly, Melissa tuned in, pointing at Eisen as she stared intensely at the Ancient Bronze Dragon.
"Older." She mumbled before Bolremgar began to smirk a bit as he shook his head.
"Ah, little one, I know that he may look older than me, but he's just regular person, right? I'm 5000 years old, and how old could he be? He looks human, so maybe 50? If not, then at most a hundred or so, right?" Bolremgar said as he leaned in toward Melissa before Kiron held up his hand.
"Actually, M'Lord is not much younger than my father." He said, surprising not only Bolremgar and Aylrentyrth but also Eisen himself.
With a frown, Ailren looked at Kiron, before asking what he meant. "Young Prince, what are you saying? Surely, he is Half-Giant, but even the oldest of elders lived only to 700 years."
"Truly, not even I know how old M'Lord is. But I can say one thing for sure. I know that my father knew him from before he ascended." He said before Ailren snapped his head over to look at Eisen.
"I see, so that title truly was something like that. I knew I had heard of the 'Original' part before… Eisen, so you were the first person in this world that has reached the peak, were you not?" He asked with a severe tone; before Bolremgar looked at Ailren in confusion. "Wait, no way he's that guy, right? You're trying to tell me that he's the one that hatched our king's egg? Isn't he supposed to be tall enough to make us look small?" He exclaimed, before Ailren swiftly nodded, confusing Eisen even more.
"Alright, stop. You're talking about things I didn't know about yet. I hatched the egg belonging to a literal God?" Eisen asked before Ailren nodded again.
"Yes, as far as the stories go, at least. It truly is unknown how old you are, after all. Some people say you are 100 Thousand years old, while others say you were one that was born to the first generations of dwarves and giants, a long, long time before that. I did not yet have the chance to truly inquire about how true the stories are with our King, but you were always known to be a great ally to him." Ailren explained before Eisen sighed and looked over to Kiron.
"Well, it seems that technically I may actually be your Grandfather, huh?" He laughed loudly, still trying to grasp the whole idea of this being the case for his character's in-game story, although it did seem somewhat random from what Eisen could gather so far.
Either way, Eisen really didn't care about his in-game past, because it wasn't his own anyway. It was the past of a person that didn't really exist, the first person that peaked.
While this old man was thinking about such things, Bolremgar stood in front of him. "Well, that was a surprise, for sure. Sorry for being so rude to you then. Well, anyway, since you've got a nickname for Aylrentyrth, I guess I should allow you to call me something else as well. There was a person that called me simply 'Bol' before. Is that to your liking?" Bolremgar asked before Eisen slowly nodded.
"Yeah, Bol sounds good to me, if that's fine with you. But anyway, my reason for coming here is something different right now. I want to fix the amulet first if you're alright with it." Eisen explained before Bol quickly nodded.
"Ah, sure! I'll give you my Trial afterward~!" Bol laughed before Eisen looked at him in surprise. "Oh? You're going to give me the Trial just like that?"
"Of course! I can't pass up the chance to make someone like you a second-tier champion, can I?"
"I see… Anyway, thanks for that, then." Eisen said with a nod, before walking up to Ailren. "Can you give me Kirisho's Gem, Ailren?" He asked, before the Ancient Dragon swiftly nodded, quickly extending his hand, revealing the deep black gem to Eisen.
"Thank you," Eisen said with a smile, preparing to do all of this properly. With his element, he quickly created something like a table where he could set all the shards and the gem down on, swiftly doing just that.
And when he did… nothing happened. But Eisen didn't expect anything to; he wanted to see if it may work just in case. So, Eisen quickly activated transmutation, intertwining the shards of the amulet with each other to connect it as much as possible, and then inlaying the gem in the center.
But again, nothing happened. And then, the old man had another idea. He may technically not be able to combine materials other than crystals and gems yet through transmutation, but maybe he would be able to merge their ends if he tried hard enough.
As such, Eisen tried doing precisely that, splitting his mana into two types and pouring each type into one of the amulet shards, and then continued with interweaving of the adjacent surfaces with each other further and further, doing so until he couldn't anymore, combining his mana at the edges as much as possible. And indeed, now Eisen couldn't find an edge anymore even if he tried, and after pulling the two types of mana out of the shards, everything still worked like normal.
So, the old man repeated this two more times to properly connect all three shards of the amulet with one another. And now, Eisen only had to fully attach the gem. He did that by simply setting the jewel into the center of the amulet's base, and transmuting the edges around it ever so slightly to move lightly along the top edges of the gem, to firmly secure it in.
But somehow, still nothing happened.
Confused, Eisen looked over at Ailren, trying to question him. "Do you know why nothing is happening? Is there some kind of ritual involved?"
Unsure of what it may be, Ailren shook his head. "I truly do not know, Eisen. Maybe we need to simply give it time. We can attempt to wake up Kirisho first, and see if it maybe worked after all." The Ancient Gold Dragon suggested, before Eisen nodded and held the amulet over to Ailren, telling him to call Kirisho, but once again the Dragon shook his head.
"I think it should be your honor to wake her, Eisen. You were the one that has collected these shards, after all. You even stepped on the Path of Yin for this purpose." Ailren told Eisen, who simply nodded quietly.
For some reason, he felt nervous. He didn't know why, but he did. What if this didn't work, and Kirisho's condition couldn't be changed? What if Eisen promised her that he would fix her, and then had to live with the fact that he lied to such a wonderful and kind woman?
As Eisen stood there, quietly holding the amulet, he was about to call out to Kirisho but didn't in fear of the possibility of failing.
Eisen didn't want to think about that, he didn't want to be reminded of these thoughts.
It wasn't the first time in his life for Eisen to have these types of thoughts. But that wasn't how the human brain worked, and Eisen couldn't help but think of what had happened with his wife back then.
How she slowly lost her mind with every passing day, making it harder and harder to remember who she was, who Benjamin was, or even who her children were.
Even now, Eisen couldn't fully hold back the tears that welled up in his eyes as he thought of the last words that his wife had spoken to him.
Back then, these words echoed through the room while Eisen sat by his wife's side, holding her hand as she was dying. The children were sleeping at the time, but Eisen wasn't able to properly fall asleep for weeks and weeks on end, not only making him seem like a husk of who he was but also his wife even more so, as she stopped speaking altogether.
It was only on her last day alive that she regained her mind again for the very last time. She was able to walk around, and read their children a bedtime story, giving them kisses as they went to bed.
That night, she and her husband had been talking for hours, simply about their past, about how they had met back in the day, and how Eisen had to convince her father to let him marry her because her father was still of the old generation and wanted things to be done like back in the day.
He wasn't happy with his daughter marrying a foreigner, but soon enough warmed up to the kind man that so lovingly spent time with his daughter.
And then, they talked about death, and lovingly held each other for hours, since they both knew deep down that this was Eisen's most beloved's last day.
It rained that day, despite it having been nearly 40° Celsius, so the humidity in the air was high even this late at night, and Eisen remembered his wife asking whether he was crying, or simply sweating from the heat as she held her hand against his cheek.
And this moment was one that Eisen truly would never forget ever in his life. The moment that made him despise the doctors that simply ignored his wife's suffering and pumped her full of medication until her tumors weren't the thing that had been killing her anymore.
As the air that had been so unpleasantly hot and humid all summer suddenly turned cold and dry, the light in Eisen's wife's eyes disappeared, and she removed her hand from his cheek, looking at her husband with a blank expression as she slowly sank into the bed, saying just three small words.
"Who are you?"