"Alright Kiron, I found some pretty interesting things. We'll need to keep it safe for a while, but I'm pretty sure that this should turn out quite amazing." Eisen laughed a bit before the half-dragon nodded his head.
"Yes, of course! But what is it?" Kiron asked, and Eisen held his finger in front of his mouth to tell him to be quiet. After all, both this 'Legacy' and the 'Dungeon Core' seemed to be quite amazing things, and would as such be worth a lot of money.
And Eisen knew what people did for money, so he didn't want to risk anything and instead tried to hide the items in his leather apron that had grown in size together with him. It didn't fit perfectly, but Eisen was at least able to cover the parts that still stuck out with his arms. "Let's get back to the others. It took a good while to get into this place, so maybe they already got the skill." Eisen explained, taking a good look around himself once they got out of the tunnel before sealing it back up with alchemy. There wasn't any ore in that direction, so it was improbable that any of the miners would dig that way, meaning that the small room would probably keep being a secret for a while.
"Koro, Rouge, Parc. Did you three get your skills yet?" Eisen asked them before both Rouge, and Parc nodded their heads and ran up to Eisen. "Yes! Both of us got it! But Koro…" Rouge explained before he looked back at the other boy, who was hard at work. It seemed like he was somewhat struggling with it, and for the most part, the rock was barely being chipped. He saw a little bit from when Rouge and Parc were working, and it seemed like the enchantments played a massive part in the speed that the two of them managed to learn the Mining Skill. But without those enchantments, it just took a lot longer.
Eisen knew that many would think that what he was about to do was a bit over the top, but in Eisen's opinion, if you can't do something under pressure, you could never really do it at all. Silently, Eisen sat down directly behind Koro with crossed legs and arms, making sure to slide his feet over the ground to make enough noise so that Koro would notice him being directly behind him.
And then, the old man simply waited. He stared at his apprentice without taking a break, judging each of his movements. And if Eisen saw something he didn't like, then he didn't hide it either. "Koro! Don't let your shoulders hang like that! You're not using a whip, so don't just swing the pickaxe around like one! Use your whole body for the motion!" He yelled strictly, even trying to use the full effects of his charisma to do so. At the start, Koro was getting disheartened by every comment that Eisen made, but later, it only fueled his actions, sharply accelerating his growth.
And a little while later, Koro dropped the pickaxe and sighed loudly, turning around toward Eisen with a big grin. "I did it! I got the skill!" Koro yelled out with an immense sense of accomplishment as Eisen began to laugh.
"Good job. But now, if you don't pick up your pickaxe within the next second, I'll break your arm." The old man said only half-jokingly, before standing up and adding onto that. "A craftsman is nothing without his tools, so we need to take care of them the best we can, got it?" Eisen exclaimed, while Koro slowly nodded and blew off the dust from the pickaxe, before carefully placing it to the side so that he could shovel the rock and ore he dug up into the cart.
"We'll bring everything upstairs, properly get rid of the rock, sort out the natural iron ore, and sell the High-Iron ore. Then, we'll move on over to the fields and learn Farming." Eisen explained as he began to push the minecart up the rails, considering that he had the rawest strength out of everyone here, while the three apprentices asked some questions that were on their minds.
"Actually… Why are we learning Mining and Farming at all? Is that really important to make a good item?" Rouge asked, and Eisen nodded his head immediately.
"Of course, it is. You don't need to become a fulltime miner, and you don't need to harvest every single material for the items you create yourself, but in my opinion, it's important to know what work went into providing the materials you're working with." Eisen responded quite swiftly, but Parc simply scratched the back of his head confused.
"I guess that kinda makes sense… although the majority of craftsmen doesn't do that, right? So why do you think it's that important?" He asked, before the old man sighed loudly. "Sorry, I guess I shouldn't expect everyone to share my common sense. I simply feel like we have a professional obligation not to let anything we make go to waste. If we make something, it should be the best thing it can be. By being aware of the hard work, other people went through to bring the materials to your worktable, the feeling of that obligation is just strengthened. At least for me, it's one of the things that pushes me to make the items I make the best that I possibly can with my current abilities. That may not be a good enough reason for all of you, but as you grow as craftsmen, and people in general, you will find out which reason for your actions you should rely on, but for now, I wanted to show you my perspective."
As the old Craftsman explained this, the group slowly made their way back up toward the surface, while the apprentices asked a few more questions so that they could fully understand Eisen's reasoning. Once they were outside, Kiron helped the three apprentices sort everything in the cart out while Eisen made his way over to the Miner that he was talking to this morning, who seemed to be on break right now.
When the Dwarf saw the Titan, which he believed Eisen to be, come closer, a grin began to form on his face. "Ah, there ye are! Any luck with findin' some High-Iron Ore?" The Dwarf asked, and Eisen nodded his head before pulling out around 15 pounds of High-Iron Ore, which he gathered by looking for areas where mana seemed to collect the most. The moment that the Dwarf saw the amount of the magic ore, he rubbed his eyes and looked up to Eisen.
"How the- Ye found 14, nay, 15 whole pounds of it? How'd someone without even tha Minin' Skill manage that?" The Miner wondered before Eisen simply winked and smiled. "I've got some tricks up my sleeve. Anyway, are you going to buy them or not?"
"Of course, I will!" The Dwarf exclaimed before he pulled out his purse and grabbed the fifteen coins out of it with a loud sigh. "I din' expect ya to find that much… Fifteen coins is a lot of money, ya know?" The Miner said with a sigh before handing Eisen the fifteen coins. But that was when Eisen noticed something else that some Miners were currently hauling up out of the mine, something that he saw some time ago, albeit in an entirely different form and color. And Ignoring the 'Quest Complete' Notification that popped up in front of him, Eisen asked the Dwarf about something.
"Wait just a moment… Those Crystals over there, are they…?" Eisen asked, before the Dwarf turned around confused, before seeing the bright red crystals, slowly nodding.
"That's crystallized mana, yeah. We find that stuff down there all the time. I mentioned before how 'dere used to be a volcano round 'ere, yeah? It's some of the leftover fire mana from that time." He explained, before Eisen grinned lightly.
"What do you do with that crystallized mana?" He asked, before the Dwarf frowned in confusion. "We throw it away… It just slowly disappears over time anyway, and we don't have many buyers for them round here. And it wouldn't be worth it shippin' them to a place like Handor, because they don't make us that much money, ya see? But why are you askin'?"
"Erm, if you don't mind, can you show me where you keep the crystalized mana? I want to buy it if possible." Eisen explained, before the Dwarf looked at him in surprise. "Oh, ya, sure about that?" He asked, but nodded his head, showing Eisen over to the area where they keep the crystalized mana, and once they got there, Eisen swiftly saw a massive mountain of Crystalized Fire Mana, as well as Crystalized Earth Mana.
"Hmm… Alright, can I buy all of this?" Eisen asked with a smile, and the Dwarf looked at him, surprised.
"Huh? I know I said they're not worth much, but this amount is still a lot, ya know?"
"Are 15 Gold Coins enough?" The old man grinned, and the Dwarf nodded with a laugh. "Yup, should be about right. But I doubt ya have somethin' to bring this all with ya, right?" The Dwarf asked, and Eisen thought for a while before nodding his head.
"I really only need the mana itself, so I'll be back in a little bit, but it won't take long," Eisen told the Dwarven Miner with a grin before he made his way over to his apprentices. Who already gave away the third of the Iron Ore that the Mine took from outsiders, before the five of them made their way back to the Carriage. "You guys go ahead and join the others by the fields; I have to do something first," Eisen explained with a smile while the three boys and the half-dragon did as Eisen suggested, and the old man himself sat down in the carriage.
First, he hid the blueprints and the Dungeon Core in a relatively safe place and then grabbed as many mana crystals as well as earth and fire gems as he could. After forming large cylinders out of the mana crystals, each about a meter high with a half-meter diameter. He made about ten total, and then swiftly merged five of them with a large number of fire gems, and then five with a large number of earth gems.
After that, Eisen swiftly turned them into large mana batteries that could hopefully properly store elemental mana, and then bound each set of five together with a few mana-crystal rings and placed a circular crystal plate on top, onto which Eisen then carved an enchantment that would take the crystallized mana and then evenly distribute it in the mana batteries.
Due to the sheer size of each battery, and by combining them, each set could store an incredibly large amount of mana. And so, with a slight grin, Eisen stepped back out of the carriage and began carrying the Battery-compounds back to the mine in his Titan-Form.
"Alright, I'm back," Eisen exclaimed when he reached the mountain of crystalized mana again, and the Dwarven Miner looked at him in surprise. "If those are s'pposed ta be containers, ye won't have enough space in those, ya know?" He exclaimed, before Eisen nodded his head slowly.
"Don't worry. These are mana batteries. By placing crystalized mana on top of here, that mana is absorbed and placed into the batteries. Like that, I'm hoping to be able to bring all of that mana with me." The old man explained while the Dwarf listened curiously.
After setting the battery compounds down, Eisen then turned to the Dwarf again. "Sorry, but I have something else I need to finish by tonight as well, so if the workers there could maybe somehow do it for me that would be great. I'll pay for the labor as well, of course." He inquired, and the Dwarf nodded his head.
"Aye, don't worry about it. The Labor's included in the price. Just come back in a few hours, and ye'll have yer mana ready to bring with ya."
With a smile, Eisen then nodded and turned around, before making his way back to the fields where his friends were waiting to get the Farming Skill.