Carefully, Eisen placed the ingots into the forge and waited for them to heat up. The material that he would be using, for now, would be the Flame of the Earth Mythril that Eisen created some time ago.
After the metal was hot enough to work with, Eisen grabbed it with his tongs and placed it onto the anvil before grabbing his hammer and pouring his infused mana into it. Slowly, the old man began to strike the metal in swift motions, forming the metal that returned some of the force of his strikes into small, thin plates of different shapes, some circular or triangular and others merely rectangular, for the item he was going to be making right now, that was enough. Eisen turned the forge off and quickly created a different work-surface, where he grabbed some leather to now use, as he simultaneously morphed the crafting space around him into Leatherworking while also deleting and remaking the rune in the center of his chest in the same thought.
Even before the three young men that would soon become Eisen's apprentices could notice, Eisen had worked with the leather in the same delicate, fast, and robust manner as he did with the metal just before. Carefully, the Demonic Craftsman created a glove reaching up to the first joint of the fingers. After carefully removing some layers of the leather, Eisen placed the Mythril plates into that glove and fixed everything onto it by sewing the metal onto the leather in a unique manner that Eisen himself only figured out just now.
With the help of transmutation, he could push the metal out of the way of the needle just enough for it to be able to pass and then fill the space up just as quickly around the string. After completing this, the Mythril plates were now attached to a few different areas on the glove. Everywhere on the backside, except for areas that needed to be able to flex and stretch while one was moving their fingers, as well as a large part of the palm area, in a way that would still allow proper movement, was now covered in these Mythril plates.
The insides of the glove were then covered in a thin layer of cloth to help absorb some of the countershock one would experience when fighting with these, and the old man swiftly made a second glove to complete the set, before he moved on to the enchanting portion of this.
With a few deft strokes of his fingers, Eisen covered the Mythril plates in some free-form enchantments that would come together in the palms for basic 'force' enchantments.
Eisen used the time for this 'Lesson' just now to make some enhanced combat gloves for Brody to use while fighting. After all, he didn't want these to go to waste. But there were still some reasons behind the choice of item, and why he turned this into a lesson.
First, it was to show them the way that different crafts could be combined, since he used all five crafting skills that he tested the boys on just now for creating this, using some skills more than others, with Alchemy's transmutation playing the smallest role.
At the same time, he showed Koro what to focus on while crafting, the actual process of crafting rather than the end product, while giving Rouge an example of how different small parts of crafting skills can come together into one item. Out of the three, he seemed to be the one that was best when it came to small details and was quite clearly the one that was most interested in combining different skills.
"The concept behind this item is quite simple, isn't it? But in the end, to make it, you need to know different skills and how to use them best. Of course, creating a great synergy between different skills is important for such a task, but if you don't work on the base skills themselves and refine them as much as possible, no amount of synergy will do anything. And sometimes, you don't need to combine one skill with others. Doing so without needing to is just a completely unnecessary and utter waste of time and effort, and might even mess the item up in the end. It just depends on the amount of using each skill." Eisen explained to them as he passed around the gloves for the boys to take a look at them.
"What I'm going to teach you is a few different things. I will show you how to use what you are good at to the greatest extent with whatever skill you want. But it's not going to be easy, I'll tell you. What you will be doing is going to be arduous work, and you'll be probably working harder than you've ever done in your lives so far. If I see that you're not doing the work I'm telling you to; you're out. You got that?" the old man asked them, before the boys slowly nodded, anxious to finally get their new occupations, before Eisen crossed his arms while the boys looked at him with wonder in their eyes.
They had already seen him work in the kitchen, but how was he able to make something like these gloves, within such a short amount of time, switching between crafts like they were simple tools? Could that really be boiled down to him being a demon?
"Now, you will have to make a choice," Eisen exclaimed, as he slowly deactivated his transformation, showing his true form to these boys for the first time. Surprised, they looked at Eisen, who now looked like just a regular old man, albeit still with an inhuman figure. "My name is Eisen. I was the first person in this world that had peaked, but someone stole my experience from me, along with the other four that had peaked. Now, after meeting in this town, together once again, we plan on leaving for a group of islands by ship in a few weeks. It will be extremely dangerous there, but if you become my apprentices, you will have to come with us. It is up to you if you want to trust what I just told you, or if you think of me as a mad old man. I'm giving you a few hours to make your choice." The old man told them as he gathered up the materials and gloves and activated his transformation again before making the makeshift building he created from his element disappear around the group before Eisen looked at the three boys.
They were all bewildered at what they were just told. It's understandable. After all, Eisen had no way to prove who he was, and sure, he was incredibly skilled, but the boys didn't see anything to the extent of a literal mock-deity that the peaked were known to be.
"W-Wait, what are you saying? You're telling us that, you're 'the' Eisen? What the hell?" Koro yelled out, trying to figure out what was going on, before Eisen's three companions answered for him, in near unison saying one word.
"Yes."
---
"Thank you so much for your help with this as well." Noa exclaimed with a smile as she watched the Demon in front of her finish up the work he had been doing on the walls of the church's main hall with the help of his Mana Doubles, or rather Demon Doubles, and managed to learn the Masonry skill through this as well. Learning skills like these didn't seem to be too hard overall, so he would hopefully be able to learn the Farming and Mining skills as well.
There was a mine not too far from this town that Eisen had wanted to visit for a while, which was quite handy to him considering that it had a little village around it as well that even had some fields, meaning that he could learn both of those skills there.
But not only that, since he was using his Demon Doubles so actively throughout all of this, he gained some excellent proficiency for his Mana Manipulation and Flame of the Earth Magic skills, ranking them both up nearly at the same time.
His new rank in mana manipulation only gave him a more significant boost in Eisen's control, and the Flame of the Earth Magic Rank-up did something quite curious. It allowed him to, to an extent, mix the fire and earth differently than usual, and have them affect each other in unexpected ways.
Up until now, the earth part of his element was never hot on its own, and it never truly mixed with the fire like one would naturally expect it to, but now he could, for example, create a clay-like substance with his earth element and have it baked by his fire.
He was able to make something similar to baked clay with his element already naturally, but it still felt a little different to typically baked clay. Like this, he was now able to create actual clay pottery if he wanted to, a thing that he would certainly be using at some point. Of course, there were other things he could do now, such as regularly heat up parts of rock on him, but this was the most useful use he managed to find out so far.
On top of that, his Crafting Space skill was also nearly at Rank 3, with only two proficiency levels missing to bring him there.
Besides learning the Farming and Mining skills, Eisen now only needed to Rank up his Soul Engineering and Drawing Skills, finish the trial he got from Bol, and give a form to a soul. Ranking up his Drawing skill shouldn't be too hard. Maybe on his way to the nearby mining town, he would be able to sketch some things out, but that was an issue for later. He would naturally gain proficiency while giving a form to a soul, so that would also be readily taken care of, in the end.
And right now, he was already working on the trial he got from Bol, which he would hopefully be able to finish soon correctly. It already seemed like there were a lot of people here that looked up to him and liked what he was doing, despite his appearance. Everyone that saw him would happily run up to him at the moment, and as such, it didn't seem like it would take too long for Eisen to step on the path of Yang.
Maybe something grand needed to happen for this to become the case. And just as if the world had heard this thought, the setup for a grand action leisurely stepped through the door.
"Ah, I see that the Demon I've heard so much about is actually at work here." A man with an arrogant voice said as he slowly stepped into the hall, the sound of which reverberated throughout the room. Surprised, both Eisen and Noa hurriedly turned around and looked at the man wearing an elegant suit that kept stepping closer, with two heavily armed guards following behind him.
Unsure of who he was, Eisen, as well as Sky, Bree, and Kiron, quickly looked over at Noa, but she seemed to be slightly freaking out.
The moment she saw the man, Noa ran in front of him and bowed forward a little bit in greeting. "Welcome, Lord. What brings us the honor of your visit?" She asked him as Eisen chose to take a break at his work and made his way toward this apparent Lord.
"Oh, I simply wanted to see this traitorous church one last time." He said with a smile that quite clearly contradicted what he just said before Noa looked up at him in confusion. "I can see that you don't quite understand what I'm saying. You are harboring a wicked being, Sister. This man that is standing behind you is the 'Golden-Eyed Demon,' who wreaked havoc in Ornier a few weeks ago. I can not allow such a church to stand in my town."