A few hours later, it was time for Eisen to finally go to bed as well, and as his in-game body only needed three or four hours of sleep at this point, he would be able to wake up before the the first type of elemental-mana ran out.
With his four small monsters, including the living Dungeon fafnir, sitting on the old man's lap, Eisen then just swiftly closed his eyes and dozed off into sleep. But instead of waking up immediately again as he was used to, he found himself inside of a weird space, which he seemed to remember from somewhere.
He seemed to be really tiny, and inside of a giant house filled with numerous tools and materials which Eisen himself would just love to have. And then, in front of him, there was a giant version of Eisen, albeit slightly different here and there. It was the same scene as in the last 'Dream' that Eisen had, just far less hazy.
Slowly, the giant version of Eisen leaned forward and grabbed the old man from the ground, grasping him tightly. Eisen was actually quite surprised, as he was able to really feel everything that was going on as if it was real life and as if he was really getting grasped, although he most likely imagined him and his mind made him believe that it was the case.
Either way, Eisen just stared forward at the giant in front of him, who slowly began to speak, although no sound was released from his mouth. At first, the Giant Eisen seemed to be relatively calm, although after a while, he began to get rather angry and started screaming, although Eisen still wasn't able to hear him speak.
And then, all of a sudden, he woke up and found himself inside the meeting room. It wasn't like the regular feeling Eisen had when waking up, more as if he scared himself into waking up in this dream, and the old man felt rather lost for a few moments due to the sudden change of his environment, as if he switched instantly between two settings.
Eisen seemed to be the first one that was awake, and he slowly stood up and let down his monsters off of his lap before he activated his truth seeing eyes and rubbed his face, somehow feeling rather lethargic at the moment. It was a weird feeling to have within the game, as Eisen had never felt this before. But he figured that things were just a bit weird at the moment because of the medication he was on, and that the game was handling things like the 'Wake-up' procedure differently, which would explain his dizziness after waking up as well as his current lethargy.
Either way, Eisen soon seemed to feel the energy return to his body as he looked at the infuser and the batteries, seeing that everything still seemed to be working properly. The old man looked to the side at the time floating next to him and then moved his fingers through his beard. "Another hour, huh?" He muttered to himself and then chose to just step out the door for a moment to get some air and something to eat.
Together with his Monsters, Eisen then made his way down to the kitchen and grabbed a few pieces of dried meat as well as some pickled vegetables and fruits, before making his way back to the main deck, where Eisen just leaned against the railing in front of him and looked at the sun as he started to feed Fafnir, Melissa and Sal. Caria didn't need to eat as she could take in nutrients from the air and the sun pretty easily.
And as Eisen scratched his cheek quietly and bit off a piece of the meat in his hand before pairing it with a cup of his personal storage of mead, the old man began to think about what he needed to be doing today.
He had a pretty busy schedule, actually. Now that he would, hopefully, get the Margon that was needed for the Core Guardian, he also needed to get another item ready, the Pot that was used to strengthen souls. He already had a recipe for it and just needed to get everything ready, and after that he needed a specific soul to continue with everything, after which Eisen would be able to actually finish everything up.
Then, he also needed to continue working on the different equipment and tools that everyone needed. The regular equipment and tools for the regular workers and the low-level people were already being made by Eisen's apprentices all the time, so Eisen himself would be working on anything else, which meant quite a bit of work. He managed to get Kiron's items out of the way first, and next, he would be working on items for the other originals so that they were prepared everything, because the old man was pretty sure they were the most important force in the whole process of taking over the islands, even if everyones' companions were also incredibly strong.
Next, Eisen needed to work on the items for those companions, starting with the most important items for the combatists, which included armor and weaponry, or tools to activate their ability, and then the supportive items for everyone, which included things like bags, potions, food, and so on.
For the most part, Eisen could probably leave the creation of some of the supportive items to his apprentices as well, as those items were things that were needed in bulk, but Eisen actually wanted to use the chance to start properly making some nice items in large batches again. He did really enjoy making things like that as well, because it was a rather relaxing activity in his opinion.
Anyway, for now, Eisen had a rough idea of what needed to be done, although it was quite clear he wouldn't be able to finish everything in a day. There were also the lessons for his apprentices, as well as Stahl, to take care of. He would probably be able to work on items while they were working on their own different tasks as well.
"Well, I guess it's time to get back up there now… Maybe some of the others are awake as well." The old man muttered to himself with a smile as he put away the food and his drink and made his way back into the meeting room, where two people were already awake, Xenia and Evalia. As Jyuuk and Brody needed to work, the old man knew that they wouldn't be there anytime soon anyway.
"Morning!" Evalia exclaimed with a smile, and Eisen smiled back before he looked over toward Xenia, who was wearing the Mana Spectacles on her nose and was currently inspecting the infusion process.
"Morning, you two. So, anything interesting going on there, Xenia?" Eisen asked with a smile, and the young High-Elf immediately nodded her head.
"Actually… I think so, yeah. I can't be exactly sure right now because of all the mana inside there, but- Holy Mother of-" Xenia exclaimed as she turned her head over to the side and happened to see Sal, who had grown to the size of a large fist after his evolution last night. "What happened?!" The young woman asked with a wry smile as she moved away a little while Sal just tilted his head to the side confused.
"He just evolved. He won't hurt you, don't worry. Even if he wanted to, he probably couldn't, at least not with his body." Eisen said with a wry smile as he looked at the spider on his hand, before Stahl and Alnico stepped through the door to the meeting room, the former quickly asking about what the old man just said.
"What do you mean? He's a giant-ass spider, how couldn't he be able to hurt us..?" He asked with a wry smile as he looked at the suddenly so large creature, and Eisen just scratched the back of his neck.
"Well, you see… Last night, I was practicing a few things with him, and then he evolved and became able to use mana. So of course, we started to practice mana a bit, because that's one of the easiest ways to get a monster to Rank 2 in my experience, beside through Combat of course. But when he started using Mana, he got a title called 'Blessed by Mana'…" Eisen said with a sigh, and Xenia immediately perked her head up.
"Wait, what?" She asked confused, and Eisen nodded his head, glad that Xenia seemed to know about it. "Apparently it's a title that sometimes appears in monsters with Albinism? Wait, no, I think it causes albinism in monsters… I'm not exactly sure, either way, it halves his physical stats, doubles his mental stats, makes it easier for him to learn magic skill and makes it harder to learn physical skills." The old man explained as he looked down at Sal, who noticed that everyone was looking at him and saw it as a good moment to start dancing!
With a chuckle, Eisen then rubbed over the Albino Spider's back and then looked at the others. "But as you can see, he really doesn't give a damn." He said, before Xenia seemed to start being rather conflicted.
And from what Eisen could guess, it was because she really wanted to see what the 'Blessed by Mana' title caused exactly, and if it gave Sal some special abilities that weren't mentioned in the skill description, but really, really didn't want to come into the direct vicinity of the small crawler.
"Do you want to wait until he has a more humanoid form?" Eisen suggested, and Xenia slowly nodded her head with a wry smile. "Yeah, that would be alright, I guess… At least a half-humanoid form like an Arachne would be fine, but like this… I don't think I can deal with that…" Xenia muttered quietly, before Eisen nodded his head and just looked over at the Margon again.
"Well, I'll let you know when that happens. So, just another ten minutes or so, right?" Eisen asked with a smile, and Stahl looked over to the side, probably at the clock, and then nodded his head before answering the question.
"Mhm, just roughly ten more minutes. Let's hope this worked…" The young man said as he scratched his cheek, and Xenia slowly nodded.
"Oh yeah, it definitely did change, don't worry. I was trying to tell Eisen about it before, but then I kind of freaked out…" She said nervously, still eye-ing Sal as she did so, before she swiftly continued and tried to ignore the creature that quite literally caused goosebumps all over her body by just existing.
"So… It seems like over time, the absorption rate became faster. At the start, it did so quite slowly, with let's say… 1 MP per second from each element, so most of the elemental mana stayed inside of the container. Luckily it couldn't 'escape' and just stayed in there, though. Anyway, over time, the Maroon started to absorb everything faster than before. Now it's at roughly… 100 MP per second from each element." Xenia explained, once more looking at the container to confirm that she really saw everything correctly. Although then, Evalia looked at the High-Elf rather confused.
"Wait, doesn't that speed up always for any material? Because mana can flow through it more easily?" She asked, but Xenia swiftly shook her head. "No, it's usually the opposite. A material usually has a certain max 'Capacity' of mana it can take in, and it takes in more mana the less it already took in, and the closer it gets to the capacity, the slower it takes in more mana. The capacity slowly grows with the rank-change of the material caused by the mana, but the mana doesn't speed up anymore after slowing down once. But the mana absorption for maroon, or margon, is just incredible!" She explained, and Eisen began to chuckle quietly.
"Not what you would expect from a metal that repulses all magic, huh?"