Eisen continued cleaning and preparing the bones for another good while, choosing to dispose of the dried-up, venom-soaked skin that used to cover them, while Kirisho sat next to him curiously, speaking to him for a little while.
"And what are you going to do with these bones now?" She asked before Eisen thought about it for a little while. "I'd like to remove the bone marrow if possible and replace it with something else that could strengthen the bones themselves. I'm sure the Homunculus is going to fix whatever issues it may have with its body itself since it was able to use the wooden body before as well." Eisen explained as he opened his chat window and messaged Xenia, who was out with Jyuuk and Brody to hunt for a while, to ask her to also lookout for a few more materials that could be used in the creation of synthetic blood and just that bone-marrow that Eisen was preparing to remove.
"Oh, so you wish to go that far with this?" She asked, and Eisen nodded his head. "Yes, I do. You see, we want to create an artificial living being with the golem core as its, well, core. And for that, it has to be quite a formidable creature I imagine." Eisen explained, before swiftly continuing while thinking about possible material choices.
"You see, I'm pretty sure Dragon bones are a great and sturdy material, and they are said to be one of the best kind of material there is, right? So I'm using their bones just for that, the homunculus' bones. Then there are things like Slimes of all kinds, some of which have to be able to strengthen other people somehow. Using them as a base would be the best outcome for both the blood and the bone marrow. Then we surely will have other things that can be of use, like the Crystal Eyes that I still have. Of course, we'll need different things for it as well to give it proper organs and such. There should, more than likely, be a good few monsters out there that have mutated enough to have a certain organ or two be just incredible, and using those organs would be great. The rest will be filled up with non-organic materials, and then we'll be done." The old man explained, and although Kirisho wasn't necessarily that interested in these kinds of things, she still listened curiously for Eisen's sake.
"That would be a chimera, though, wouldn't it?" She asked, and Eisen immediately nodded his head. "Yes, of course, but there's nothing wrong with that. As long as we create the Homunculus' body with reason and structure, it won't look like a 'classic' chimera either. It won't have full limbs of other monsters, just maybe a small piece here and there." He explained, which made sense to Kirisho as well.
"You seem to be quite excited for this project, Eisen. Is there any reason why?" The Mist-Spirit then inquired, while Eisen began to place the bone-marrow, which was extracted with the help of softening and transmutation, into a bowl.
"Well… You don't often get to work with these kinds of things, and you especially don't often get to create a living being's body from the ground up either. So, of course, I would be somewhat excited at this chance." Eisen explained before Kirisho looked at him with a gentle smile, merely staying silent.
"Anyway, after I finish these, I'll just put them in thinned-down Health Jelly for a while so that, if even possible, the damage done to the bones through the venom may be repaired," Eisen said, merely trying to explain the next step after finishing the Bone-Marrow extraction, and Kirisho slowly nodded her head.
And so, Eisen did just that. He put the rest of the bone marrow into the bowl and then placed that bowl to the side before he went to grab some of the Health Jelly he had in his carriage.
When he got back to the meeting room, he mixed the Health Jelly with water and then placed the bones into their bath, sealing up each of the small individual containers, and then stacking them up against one side of the room.
"Now then, what should I do with this?" Eisen wondered as he took a look at the large mana crystal tub filled with the venom mixed with the dissolved flesh of the Dragon embryo, as well as the large petrified egg-shells with those deep-black crystal structures on the inside.
Using his 'truth-seeing' eyes, Eisen first tried to confirm a few things. First, he could see a high density of mana inside both the venom and the crystal in the egg, meaning that both were either magical or somehow magically enhanced. But he could quite instantly see that they were different entities altogether since the mana inside of the crystals was of a completely different color to the venoms.
The venom's mana was just a deep, bright neon green that would give you the thought 'Poisonous' only from seeing it, while the mana inside of the black crystals was surprisingly a deep red, different to what Eisen thought it would have just judged from the color of the crystals themselves.
So without further ado, Eisen grabbed one of the crystals, obviously still while wearing his makeshift mana-crystal gloves, and removed it from the cluster. Quite soon, he noticed that the black coloring was simply a foreign substance that somehow mixed in with the crystals. They weren't actually that hard, and they could easily be pulled apart, and inside of the black material, Eisen could see different bright red crystals the same color as their mana.
"Hmm, so that's it, huh?" Eisen muttered quietly, before starting to pull off the slime-like crystals from the petrified egg-shell, placing them into another, different mana-crystal tub, while he took a closer look at the actual egg-shell, which seemed to have completely fused with the outer rock-layer without any hope of simply removing it. "I can probably melt this down though, right?" He thought to himself, before choosing to do that at a later point, for now simply hoping to remove the red crystals from the black goop.
So, with his Truth-Seeing-Eyes active and being able to discern where the different red crystals were accurately, Eisen ripped the goop up into pieces and then pulled whatever crystals were inside out. And as he was doing so, he also took a look at what they even were.
[Red Dragon's Crystal]
[Quality – High][Rank – 6]
[Description] A Crystal usually only found on the inside of a Red Dragon's egg before the offspring hatches. When it does so, the Dragon child will absorb the crystals to enhance its natural strengths.
[Parasitic Slime]
[Quality – Highest][Rank – 6]
[Description] The leftovers from a Slime-type monster that is usually known to infect numerous different species to survive and reproduce.
Surprised, Eisen looked at the black slime, happy that he didn't touch it with his hands. It was possible that the slime first infected the egg and began to eat the Red Dragon's Crystals, but then whatever creature the venom came from saw the egg, poured its poison inside, and killed the embryo and the slime at the same time.
And a little while later, Eisen could confirm that this was probably the case, as he soon found a small, perfectly round marble-sized gem in the slime, it's Mana Crystal. "Hmm, interesting…" Eisen muttered out and placed the special mana crystal to the side to continue extracting the Red Dragon's Crystals. That was quite a surprise, though. He didn't expect this egg to belong to a red dragon of all things. He instead thought it belonged to some kind of lesser dragon.
After a good while, Eisen now had the Red Dragon's Crystals to his left, and the Parasitic Slime to his right, already trying to figure out how he could best use either of these materials. He didn't like the 'Parasitic' aspect of the slime; he would much rather prefer something 'Symbiotic' that could actually help the homunculus' body out. But since it just wasn't that, Eisen chose to ask Jyuuk about it later and see if there were any good uses for it, and if not, he would dispose of it somehow.
"And what will you do now?" Kirisho asked the old man, who looked at the Spirit next to him and shrugged, sealing the tub with the parasitic slime up, just in case, before he stood up.
"I don't know. I don't have anything I need to do right now. So I guess I'm just going to help the others out a bit." Eisen said as he made his way out of the room in his titan-form, stepping down the stairs as Kirisho followed him, watching as everyone was seemingly busy at work finishing everything up, meaning that he didn't have anything to do at the moment. Even Evalia was finished with the sails and got to work with the new Figurehead for the front of the ship now that they couldn't use the one she created before anymore.
So other than waiting for Brody, Jyuuk, and Xenia to come back with materials, Eisen couldn't do much, considering that he wasn't asked to make items yet despite from Kiron, whose item would take a little bit longer, meaning that he couldn't work on it yet.
"Hmm…" Eisen mumbled as he sat down on the stairs, merely watching everyone work and talk to each other, thinking about what he should do next, before noticing a small scratch in the wood he was sitting on, it was nothing major. Just a tiny scratch one wouldn't mind at all, but it still gave him a great idea on what he should do next. With a grin on his face, Eisen made his way over to Caria and Melissa, who was still busily practicing their magic, before they looked at Eisen happily.
"Hey there, you two," Eisen said as he sat down next to them, before looking at Caria. "You ranked your element up to one, right?" He asked, and Caria immediately nodded her head.
"Mhm! Caria did! Melly did too, though!" She exclaimed, and the old man looked at the little empress bee as with a wide grin as well. "That's great! Good job, you two. Caria, did the mushrooms you make a change now?" He asked, but Caria quietly thought about it and nodded her head.
"Caria thinks so. They're as cute as before, but now they are special as well!" She explained before Eisen smiled and extended his arm in front of her. "Could you maybe completely cover my arm in those mushrooms? I need them for something."
Confused, Caria nodded her head and ran her hand across Eisen's arm, before numerous 'Eisen Mushrooms' Sprouted out of his skin. Outwardly they didn't change much, just as Caria said, their details were just a bit more, well, detailed. "Is it possible for me to just cut these off now?" Eisen inquired, to make sure, and Caria slowly nodded.
"Mhm, you can! Caria thinks so at least…" She muttered before Eisen smiled and took out his knife, merely cutting the mushrooms off where they met the old man's skin. The rest of the stems disappeared without a trace.
"Could you do that again? A few times more?" He asked, and once more, Caria excitedly nodded while Eisen placed the mushrooms into a bag. And after a few minutes, Eisen had a pretty big pile of them, and Caria ran low on mana, so the old man handed her a few mana potions.
"Here you go, thanks for your help." He told Caria before she nodded at him with a grin, and Eisen slowly stood up before making his way to the carriage, which was now stored inside of the actual ship, so that he could get a few materials.
After all, he would now use these mushrooms to create an auto-repair system for the ship.