"Fafnir? Sounds cute!" Bree exclaimed with excitement in her voice as she came closer and took a look at the small dragon as well, just like everyone else there did. But the tiny creature, in turn, chose to hide in one of the pockets of Eisen's apron.
"Come on, let's try not to scare the little guy. He was only just born, after all." Eisen told them as he looked down and was soon faced with the glowing eyes of the small creature.
"But it's so cute!" Kyla yelled out, freaking out over Fafnir together with basically all the other girls in the room. "He is pretty cute, yes, but again, let's not scare him right away," Eisen said before choosing to pull up the window with the information about the Living Dungeon Fafnir.
[Fafnir]
[Race - Living Dungeon Wyrmling][Rank – 0][Level – 1]
[HP – 200]
[STR – 15][END – 20][AGI – 15]
[Skills]
-[Dungeon Nature][Rank – 0][Level – 1]
-[Draconic Nature][Rank – 0][Level – 1]
Eisen curiously read through the small amount of information, already impressed with the stats of this lowest-level creature, and while he was at it, Brody clapped his hands together. Apparently, he did it with his energies infused into the action, since it was far louder and snappier than it should have been otherwise.
"Alright everyone, I feel like it's time for a meeting of the originals. So move your asses and get out of here, we'll fill you in later." The Demon-Orc halfling decided and walked up behind the crowd, pushing out every one of them, even including Caria and Melissa, who Kirisho took with her, leaving only the five originals and the Living Dungeon Wyrmling in there, although everyone else was complaining quite a bit.
"Thanks, Brody. Should we get started and take a look at what this little guy can do?" Eisen suggested, and the four others immediately nodded their heads, before the old man took Fafnir out of his central chest pocket and placed him onto the meeting table.
"Okay buddy, can you show us what you can do with your 'Draconic Nature' skill?" Eisen asked, and Fafnir tilted his head to the side for a moment, so Eisen figured it was just something passive until now and would give him more abilities over time.
"I guess not… Then how about your 'Dungeon Nature'?" This time around, Fafnir immediately jumped off the table and stood up on his hind legs while spreading his wings, before a notification popped up.
[Living Dungeon Hatchling Fafnir is unable to execute ability <Dungeon Gate> due to lack of mana]
With a loud sigh, Eisen then extended his hand toward Fafnir and waited for him to climb onto his arm. "Seems like that won't work either yet," Eisen said and looked at the small winged-lizard, before turning to the others.
"Are Rank 0 Dungeons even a thing?" He inquired, and Brody thought about it for a while before shaking his head.
"I don't think so. Haven't seen one so far at least." The Demon-Orc answered, and Eisen ended up frowning. "Hmm… It said that Fafnir has a Dungeon Floor already, though." The old man said, and Xenia spoke up next.
"Well, as far as I know, Dungeons always have one original floor more than accessible for the Dungeon Core, because people aren't usually allowed near it. So I guess that one floor is technically zero?" She suggested as a solution for the nonexistent problem, and the old man nodded his head slowly.
"I guess so. But I wonder, can it level up like normal just by fighting?" The old man wondered and looked through any information that he had on Fafnir before noticing a particular ability.
[Ability - Dungeon Authority]
[Description] The Dungeon Authority is passively spread around the inside of the Dungeon as well as its direct surrounding. A Living Dungeon can use its authority to gain experience and level up through different actions it observes inside the range of the Authority.
"Huh… Interesting…" The old man muttered out before activating his Truth-Seeing-Eyes to see if there was anything there, and indeed, there was a just barely noticeable sphere in a rough five-meter radius directly around Fafnir, so Eisen began to smile.
"Alright, perfect! I know what we need to do." Eisen stood up with Fafnir on his shoulder and made his way toward the door before the others looked at him, confused.
"Huh? What are you doing?" Evalia asked, but Eisen just smiled at her. "We're all going to show him our areas of expertise." The old man said and motioned the four of them to follow him before they stood up and did as suggested.
And when they reached the central area of the deck, they turned to Eisen again and once more asked him what exactly they needed to do, and he swiftly began to explain. "So that Fafnir can level up, we need to do all kinds of things directly around him. I thought that maybe it would be a good chance to show everyone here what we can do, at least to an extent. We don't have to show any trump cards, but enough to show them how prepared we are. And then, I guess it's also a good chance to let anyone that feels like it comes forward and shows what they can do to us so that we can see who would be useful for which tasks." The old man said, as he looked over at Bree, who saw that they left the room and immediately rushed over to them and smiled brightly.
"Can you maybe get everyone, and I mean everyone, to come here? Even the children, alright?" Eisen asked, and after a swift salute and a light giggle, Bree turned around and rushed around the ship to gather everyone.
While they were one after another reaching the group of originals, Xenia turned to Eisen with a smirk.
"I mean, is it a good idea to do that on this ship? Especially if I go all-out, that might not end up well. I have a lot of powerful area of effect magic, after all." She said, and Eisen looked at her with a frown. "Look that way for a second." He said as he kept his eyes on the High-Elf and his arms crossed, which made Xenia look back confused.
"What? Which way?" She asked, but Eisen kept standing still. "'Literally' anywhere. We're on the ocean, Xenia, you can use magic as large as you want as long as it's out of range of the ship." The old man told her, before Xenia's face swiftly flushed red and she pulled her with-hat further down onto her face to hide just that. "R-Right…" She embarrassedly stuttered before Eisen couldn't help but let out a light chuckle.
"I'm more worried about Brody's turn because he seriously can't get out of range of the ship." He explained, and the Demon-Orc just shrugged. "Oye, let me be, not my fault." He protested, but Eisen shook his head.
"Don't worry, I know. Anyway, who wants to go first? Jyuuk?" After Eisen suggested this, he looked over to the Monkey-Beastperson who then nodded his head, already summoning his Beastiary from his soul storage.
"Sure!" He responded enthusiastically before the group waited for everyone to arrive. The majority of them were still quite nervous, but a good bit managed to calm down from before, although that might have changed again after what Eisen said next.
"Okay everyone, thanks for coming up here again! Today, we would like to do two things." He exclaimed before holding out his hand in a fist before stretching one of his fingers upward. "One! We want to show you what we can do." And then he added another finger and continued. "And Two! We want to see what you can do! All five of us will one after another go up there and show you some of our abilities, before those of you who want to impress us will do the same! First, Jyuuk will go up, and after that, those with any Naturalist, Taming, or Necromantic abilities can choose to show us what you can do." Eisen explained before he looked at Jyuuk, who nodded his head and stepped up into the center of the crowd while Eisen placed Fafnir down on the ground so that he was adequately within range of the Monkey.
Slowly, Jyuuk extended his arm before all of the beasts that he stored on his skin appeared around him, which were the original beasts that Jyuuk tamed before taking in all the monsters from the Monster shop that Eisen 'liberated'.
And then, as a few of those monsters appeared as well before Jyuuk reached his upper limit of monsters that he could summon before he then summoned the five 'undead' that were left on his hand, all of which, besides the one ghost-type, were overgrown with his plants to strengthen and support them.
Immediately, the people looked at Jyuuk and his monsters in surprise at the sheer number, including all of the players that were on the ship, before Jyuuk spoke up. "These are some of my monsters. I have many more in this Beastiary of mine, and then there is, of course, the skeletal crew of sailors that are taking care of the ship right now." Jyuuk explained, before beginning to demonstrate some of the skills of his monsters, including a specialized synergy skill between Aotori and Akatori, as in contrast between Ice and Fire.
This demonstration alone was quite a show, and the sight of these things let Fafnir level up to 12 already! After Jyuuk's presentation was over, and he unsummoned his monsters, a few people stepped up, including a Priestess to the Goddess of Death Aoh.
One of them showed off the small snake that he had tamed that was usually hiding in his shirt, while another one showed off their plant control skills. And the priestess then showed herself summoning an undead. There were a few different things that happened, but nothing went past that level.
That was already a bit of a surprise to Eisen, but he ignored it, and they moved on to the next demonstration from Xenia. She drew a Large, complex magic-circle into the air, causing a quite flashy scene of dozens dolphins made of pure water to jump over the ship, before then even creating something like a 'Water Giant' to appear by sticking out of the water waist-up and then blew against the sails to give them a little boost. These all nearly extended Xenia's vast mana, so her demonstration didn't go much farther. Once more, other people stepped up and showed them their magic ability, but again, there wasn't anything especially noteworthy about anything they did.
Not even after Evalia, Brody, or even Eisen's demonstration did anyone's ability seem to jump out. Sure, there were those that Eisen thought might be a little talented, but their talents were weaker than anyone currently in the guild of just a little more than a dozen people.
Was this the norm of the game world? If it was, then he didn't understand why that was. Or maybe these people in particular just weren't all that strong? Even if that was the case, the numerous different demonstrations gave the originals a good idea of who would be useful in what area, while at the same time giving the five new players here a good impression on what could be done in the game.
Of course, it also helped to level Fafnir up a good bit until he was at Level 90, only ten levels from ranking up for the first time. But Eisen needed an excellent way to give Fafnir the experience required for those last ten levels, but before then, he chose to end this little event for now.
"Alright, all of you! Good job today!" He exclaimed and then swiftly continued. "Please, take the time on this ship here to further your abilities as far as you can, and ask any of us for help if you should need it!" Eisen told them, hoping that this would be the end of it, but it seemed like Brody had another idea which he came up with after the old man told him that Fafnir was only at level 90.
"And to end it off, Eisen and I are going to have a little duel!"