Benjamin sat in the bathroom for a few moments, merely trying to catch himself again. He didn't know why he was suddenly so much worse compared to before, but he was. He was throwing up blood mixed with stomach acid, and his mouth was just completely overwhelmed by the taste of iron.
Benjamin only threw up once, and he wasn't actually feeling all that bad overall, just a bit weak. He wasn't in pain, he wasn't feeling dizzy, and he didn't notice any difference to the day before, but his health was slowly deteriorating, and that was a fact.
After getting himself up off the ground, he also didn't feel that bad anymore either. Maybe that was just a one-time thing, and he would return to perfect health tomorrow again?
"Heh… That probably won't happen…" Benjamin muttered to himself as he cleaned up after himself to get rid of any trace of blood, and then got undressed and removed the bandage on his arm before stepping into the shower. A cold one, of course. He didn't want to risk anything by making himself dizzy by making the water too hot.
After a few minutes, he finished his shower and dried his body, before getting dressed in new clothes and making his way to the living room, where he grabbed some bandages and some cooling and numbing balm, which he spread onto his arm before covering it up with the bandages.
Soon, Tony came over with some food and handed it to his father, before the two of them made their way outside with Sean and Katy.
They talked for a good hour or two about mostly simple, shallow stuff; like what Tony was doing all day, how things were going with preparations for the move and job-change, or what school he wanted to send Sean and Katy to when they moved.
But they didn't talk about what needed to be talked about, neither of them mentioned that Tony obviously heard the sound of Benjamin throwing up, and the fact that his arm was getting worse wasn't mentioned either. Tony trusted his father. He knew that if something were wrong, he would talk about it.
Benjamin trusted himself to do exactly that as well. But that's just the thing about trust, it is easy to believe in someone when nothing is going on, but when things actually happened, it became harder and harder to keep that trust up.
And Benjamin couldn't trust himself anymore.
---
Slowly, Eisen took a look around himself after waking up, noticing that not only Jyuuk and Xenia who said they would work on things some more but also a bunch of spectators were in the room. While the Beastperson and the High-Elf were diligently working on a few things, sketching out what the Homunculus would look like with the help of Evalia.
"Morning, all of you. Or rather an afternoon." The old man said with a smile as he looked down at his lap, seeing that Caria and Melissa were still laying on top of him.
"Hey there, Grampa," Stahl said with a smile as he looked up from curiously watching the three originals sketch out the form of the Dragon Homunculus.
Returning that smile, Eisen carefully stood up after picking the two monster girls up in his arms, before he noticed something odd, which was supported by a notification that was floating near the corner of his eye.
[You have spent so long with your size increased that you can even do so while sleeping! +25% Size change limit!]
"Oh, interesting." The old man muttered to himself before immediately doing what the notification allowed him to do, growing in height by another half-meter.
"Wait, did you just grow again?" Zyra asked, confused, and the old man nodded his head. "Yes, I did. Since I spent so much time at my increased size, my upper limit increased a bit." Eisen explained as he squatted down next to the others to take a look at the sketch so far.
It did just look like a dragon, probably quite similar to what the Dragon from the egg that Eisen was given would have looked like if it had been given a chance to hatch. "So, what do you think?" Evalia asked with a smile, and Eisen nodded his head immediately.
"Looks good to me. You have a few anatomical sketches as well, huh?" Eisen muttered as he picked up one of the sheets of paper that were laying on the table, before beginning to smirk.
"Should we start?" Eisen suggested before both Jyuuk and Xenia nodded their heads, and the old man made his way over to the bones to start with the construction of the skeleton, but Jyuuk swiftly stopped him.
"Wait, let me." The Monkey-Beastperson said and then held his hand toward the bones, before they began to rattle and float, slowly clipping together at the ends before a Draconic Skeleton stood before them, its bone-wings curled up on its back.
Surprised, Eisen looked at Jyuuk and frowned a slight bit. "Doesn't that turn it into one of your undead?" He asked, and Jyuuk shook his head immediately.
"Actually not! Regular undead can move by themselves after being infused with a soul. This ability is just called 'Bone Manipulation.' It falls under Necromancy, but that's not an 'undead' yet, just a 'Bone Doll' or something." He explained, and Eisen began to smile at him. "I see. Well, that certainly makes it easier. Now, let's start with the muscles and then place the organs where they need to be." The old man suggested as he looked over to Jyuuk for confirmation before he swiftly nodded.
"Alright, then let's get started! Jyuuk, tell me what I need to do exactly to place everything where it needs to be properly." He said before precisely that, and Eisen was being instructed on what to do.
And precisely that's what happened for the next few hours. Jyuuk explained where each part needed to go, and Eisen executed that explanation. Muscle after muscle, Eisen strapped everything into place before putting the organs where he was told before also placing the scales on the outside of its body even though it was just on the muscles.
When the Homunculus-core did its thing, then it would surely fix these small facts. And that was precisely what needed to be placed into the body now.
"So, now we just need to 'Offer' the Homunculus the Dungeon Core, right?" Eisen asked as he turned to Xenia and Jyuuk for confirmation, and the High-Elf nodded her head.
"Yep, basically." Xenia shrugged, and Eisen smirked as he grabbed the sizeable purple crystal from where he hid it in this room and carried it over to the table where the Homunculus-core was waiting.
Slowly, the old man pressed the Dungeon Core against the thick outer rock-like layer of the flesh sphere, before that rock-like layer immediately shattered and fell to dust, revealing the heart-like object that was inside of it before.
The flesh-colored heart began to morph as it crept up onto the Dungeon Core and covered it immediately, and Eisen had to lay it down on the table as quickly as he could. Otherwise, it would have probably swallowed the old man as well.
Soon, the heart covered the whole crystal, before shrinking down to its regular size, although its shape had changed a good bit. Instead of being a lumpy mass of flesh like before, it was now a pulsating, perfectly round sphere the size of Eisen's current fist while his size was increased to the maximum.
But then, the sphere stopped pulsating as a mist-like mass left it. And it seemed like Jyuuk and Xenia, as the creators of the Homunculus, were the ones that received some notifications.
With a sigh, Jyuuk began to scratch the back of his head. "Alright, good and bad news. The Dungeon Core was accepted, and the Homunculus-Core is now complete. But as for the soul that we gave it before… That wasn't accepted." He explained, and Xenia continued immediately.
"And not only that… But it seems like the Homunculus works different from what we thought. To function, it does need a body, or rather a reference of what it should become. It's going to take the shape and nature of the soul in it. So we did all of this for nothing." Xenia loudly sighed as she dropped into her chair, but Eisen shook his head.
"That's not true. It might just take a bit longer, but we're going to need to find a soul with requirements that fit the body we created, and then go from there." Eisen chuckled before Jyuuk and Xenia looked at each other confused, and the rest of the people in the room didn't understand what this old man was saying any better.
With a sigh, Eisen closed his eyes and thought about it for a while, before remembering something and looking at Jyuuk and Kiron. "Hey, just curious, but what rank are newborn Dragons?" The old man asked, and Jyuuk tried to think about it, but couldn't find an answer, although Kiron seemed to know.
"Grandfather, Newborn Dragons are born at Rank five. At rank six they become younglings, then at seven juveniles, at eight adults, at nine Elders, and at rank ten finally ancient." He answered, and Eisen nodded his head as he looked at Jyuuk, who seemed to have understood what Eisen was getting at.
"They are born at Rank 5… Then that means there should be a soul stone somewhere!" He exclaimed, but Xenia shook her head with a sigh. "Then we would have found it already, wouldn't we? We split every part of that egg into its tiniest parts." She added, and while Jyuuk slumped down again, Eisen shook his head.
"Although, there's a small exception." The old man explained as he stepped over to the wall and took a look around, before finding a small rock behind a crate. He reached down and grabbed it, before holding it forward on his palm.
"Wait, is that..?" Jyuuk muttered out, and Eisen nodded his head. "Yes, it is." The old man answered, before Xenia, Jyuuk, and even Evalia became curious and excited, while Stahl looked at the rock and tilted his head to the side in confusion.
"What's so great about that rock?" He asked, and Eisen laughed as a response. "This isn't a rock, Stahl. When we opened the petrified Dragon-Egg up, Jyuuk removed a shard from the top so that we can look inside. This 'rock' is the only part of the egg we didn't split up into anything." The old man explained before he activated his mana-sight, confirming just what he thought was the case. With transmutation, he stripped the rock away to reveal a small marble with a twisting mist-like substance inside of it. And after some appraisal, Eisen could confirm what it was.
[Soul Stone][Red-Dragon Embryo][Rank – 5]
With a broad grin on his face, Eisen cracked the marble open with transmutation before the soul scattered out of it, and the old man extended his hand toward the soul floating mid-air.
[Red-Dragon Embryo's Soul][Rank - 5]
[Soul Strength - 198]
[Integrity – 10][Mana Generation – 20][Thought - 30]
[Form – None]
"Huh?" Eisen muttered surprised. He would have expected the soul strength to be much higher, but maybe it was just that low because it was still just an embryo's soul? Either way, Eisen was glad that the soul wasn't strong enough to reject him. Now, he just needed to figure something else out for the Dragon's body, and then that was it. Quickly, he looked around the room, seeing two items that were just so conveniently there.
One, the heart of a monster that Jyuuk bought just in case they needed it, and even enhanced and enchanted it, and second, the parasitic slime.
"Jyuuk, do you know how a parasitic slime works or looks when it infects monsters?" He asked, and the monkey beastperson thought about it for a while and then nodded.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it just fills out any cavity it can. And when a monster gets damaged, it- Wait, do you think-" Jyuuk explained while realizing why Eisen was asking in the middle of that explanation.
"Yes, exactly. Jyuuk, Xenia, set the heart you enchanted into the body and use the Parasitic slime to create somehow a false mass of flesh that can fill out all that space." Eisen told them in a somewhat commanding tone, before turning to the soul again.
"And in the meantime, I'll take care of the soul problem," Eisen said as he activated the option to give a soul a form before he immediately felt the environment he was in change. He was in a chaotic, volcanic space, with cracks in the earth that revealed the boiling magma that was underneath. Dozens of volcanoes erupted in the area, and things like meteorites fell from the sky like rain.
But none of that seemed like it was anything compared to the very angry, growling, full-sized red-dragon in front of Eisen.