With the quite short metallic figure following behind Eisen, the old man swiftly made his way to the Meeting Room, where he soon saw Fafnir sleeping on top of the stone-brick gate, and without hesitation Eisen opened the door and motioned toward Sigurd.
"After you." He said with a grin, and the Core Guardian stepped through into the dungeon without a reaction, while Alnico and Stahl were standing next to the door.
"Do you two want to come along as well?" Eisen asked with a smile, and the two of them slowly looked at each other, while the rather excited Stahl nodded his head. "I mean, I definitely do. What about you?" He asked his cousin, who slowly and silently nodded her head.
"Then Stahl, you go on ahead, I want to talk to Alnico a little bit." The old man explained with a smile, and the young man nodded his head and went into the dungeon, immediately heading for the next door that led directly to the Core Room, while Sigurd was just waiting inside of the dungeon next to the main entrance until Eisen stepped in.
And while the old man told Caria, Melissa and Sal to go on inside as well, slowly looked at Alnico in front of him and then looked around to make sure nobody was listening in on them.
And the first thing that Eisen did was embrace his granddaughter. "I'm sorry, Sophia, I shouldn't have just come back in my current state without telling you about it." Eisen said with a light smile, and Alnico, who was slightly surprised, just stayed silent for a moment and slowly returned the hug, before slowly opening her mouth.
"Yeah… You really shouldn't have…" She answered quietly, before her grandfather simply slowly rubbed his hand over her back, "Just… Why did you pretend to be fine? We're not kids anymore… Well, Benji and I aren't, I get that you weren't 100% honest because of Sean and Katy, but… Having you lie to us just feels very, very bad…" Alnico explained as she slowly stopped hugging her grandfather and ran her hand over her eyes to get rid of the tears in their corners.
"I know, I just thought… No, I shouldn't try to make any excuses… I'm just sorry, Sophia, I won't lie to any of you from now on, alright?" The old man answered with a light smile, and his Granddaughter soon nodded her head with a smile on her face.
"I guess that's fine…" Alnico replied, and the two of them slowly made their way into the dungeon, having now finally cleared up a big part of the lingering emotions from last night, where Alnico had opened up Eisen's capsule to talk to him.
And now, with Sigurd and his three tamed monsters following behind him and Alnico walking next to him, Eisen made his way to the Core Room, where Xenia, Evalia, Stahl, and the ghostly form of Fafnir were already waiting.
"Wait, that's the Core Guardian?" Xenia asked surprised, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Mhm, they're called Sigurd." Eisen said with a smile, and Stahl immediately cracked up.
"Wait, you named the one that's supposed to guard Fafnir after the person that killed Fafnir in mythology?" Stahl asked with a grin, and Eisen just nodded his head.
"Yeah, I thought it was a fun combination. Anyway, Sigurd, that's the core. How about you connect with it and we get started?" Eisen suggested, before the short Core Guardian nodded its head and stepped forward toward the floating purple crystal, placing its hand on it.
And quite soon, Fafnir's ghostly body seemed to walk toward Sigurd as if hypnotized, before the Guardian's head slowly turned toward the small dragon and kneeled down, its lips slowly moving upward while it placed its hand on Fafnir's head.
At the same time, Eisen received a notification.
[Core Guardian Sigurd has connected with the Living Dungeon Fafnir's Core]
[Any and all information on Dungeons that will be needed to support, strengthen, and protect the dungeon will be learned by Sigurd automatically]
With a smile on his face, the old man waved those notifications away and started stepping forward toward Sigurd and Fafnir, although Eisen could hear a loud, very uncomfortable sound coming from Sigurd's body all of a sudden, accompanied with another notification.
[The Core Guardian Sigurd's nature will change to better fit the Core's Nature]
[Evolution of the Core Guardian will be initiated once everyone exits the Dungeon]
Confused, Eisen immediately stared forward while he pulled up the information window for the dungeon and 'overwrote' the entrance with a different, temporary door so that everyone could immediately leave.
"Everyone, get out, hurry. Seems like Sigurd's in pain…" Eisen muttered out as he looked at the figure of the cramped up, convulsing Sigurd as the young Core Guardian seemed to be in a lot of pain, and Eisen just wanted to hurry so that Sigurd could 'Evolve' and the pain would stop.
While the others were also quite confused as they were specifically asked to go inside the Dungeon a few minutes ago, they also noticed that something was going on, and as such listened to the old man and hurried out of the door, although they were still rather confused because they didn't get the same notifications that Eisen did.
But when they left the Dungeon through they door, the wooden door immediately shut down and it didn't seem as if it would be possible to open it at the moment. Although soon, just a few moments later, the door opened up again, and a certain figure stepped out of it. The color of its metallic skin had changed, but it was still quite clearly metallic as far as Eisen could judge visually, and instead of a steel-like Gray, the color changed into something like a very pale, white skin, something similar to Xenia's skintone, actually.
But there were some parts that seemed to be quite tattoo-like, for example two dark red triangles, the same color as Fafnir's scales, underneath Sigurd's eyes, which had also changed quite a bit, now being basically also completely like Fafnir's eyes.
And while Sigurd was completely bald before, now, it had some dark red metallic hair on its head reaching down to its hip. The shape of Sigurd's face had also changed quite a bit, become slimmer and more feminine, while the rest of its body seemed to have followed in that sense, becoming just so slightly more curved.
It seemed like Sigurd's voice also followed that same principle, however.
"Welcome. As I have been introduced as before, my name is Sigurd, it is an honor to meet you all." The Core Guardian explained with a smile, slightly bowing forward, before it turned around and opened up the way for everyone to enter again.
"Well… that's a little bit of a surprise…" Evalia said with a wry smile, before she swiftly stepped into the dungeon through the stone-brick arch, and everyone else did the same.
And when they entered, they somehow already noticed a few subtle changes, like the terrain turning into a more natural shape, having a light slope to it, and Sigurd swiftly spoke up.
"I have already noticed your intent on turning this space into a rather natural-looking form, as if you enter and open space in a forest. Isn't that correct?" The Core Guardian asked with a smile, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head.
"Yes, that's exacty right, actually. The first three floors are supposed to end up in a forest-like style, and you would be entering some overgrown ruins from this place and end up in an actual forest on the third floor." Eisen explained quite swiftly, before Sigurd nodded its head.
"I see, that shouldn't be too hard. Now, I'm sure you all may have a few questions about what my abilities are within this space, isn't that right?" Sigurd asked, once more smiling, and Eisen immediately noticed that it really did change quite a lot personality wise after that 'Evolution' as well, although something rather surprising happened next, which made the old man freak out nearly immediately.
Sigurd fell to dust that swiftly disappeared into nothingness. Of course Eisen figured that this was part of Sigurd's abilities, but it was still quite shocking to see one of his creations just 'Destroy' itself like that, although it soon enough re-appeared just a few meters further to the side.
"The First ability is that I can move freely within the space of this dungeon. No matter if its from the deepest corner of the deepest level to the very entrance, I can go any distance instantly. Of course, combined with this ability, I have complete and utter knowledge about anything and everything that's going on within here as well. For example, I am capable of telling you the exact number of blades of Grass inside of this room. I can tell you exactly how much space all of our bodies take up within this room as well." Sigurd swiftly explained, and Xenia nodded her head with a curious smile.
"Alright, so basically, you're omniscient and omnipresent within the dungeon?" The High-Elf asked just to put those abilities into proper words, and the Core Guardian nodded its head. "That's a good way to sum it up, yes. But other than that, when any change to the dungeon goes directly through me, it will cost considerably less DP. Well, the change maybe isn't that great when talking about lower-grade purchases such as those you have currently available, and the amount of DP that I can save will change over the course of different ranks of this dungeon as well, but I will inform you if there is any major change anyway." Sigurd then added, before Eisen nodded his head with a grin on his face.
"Interesting… Well, you seem pretty reasonable and intelligent, so it would probably be alright to leave the maintenance of the Dungeon completely to you, right?" Eisen asked with a smile, and Sigurd nodded its head immediateley with a just so slight bow forward.
"Of course. As I am incapable of being further apart from Fafnir than five meters currently anyway if I were to exit the Dungeon, I have to be here either way, no matter what role you give me. But from the knowledge I was given, I'm aware that such is the role of most Dungeon Core Guardians anyway." Sigurd explained, and soon enough, Stahl opened his mouth to ask about something that the core guardian in front of them just said.
"Wait, you just said that you were given knowledge, right? Where exactly did you get that knowledge from?" Stahl asked, and immediately, Sigurd turned toward the green-haired young man with a sour expression, completely different to the one it was wearing when looking at Evalia, Xenia, Eisen and his monsters.
"From the core." It answered swiftly and snappy, before turning back toward the others with a bright smile, with a main focus on Eisen, while Stahl looked at his grandfather confused.
"Sigurd, I'm quite curious about that as well, so could you elaborate on that?" Eisen then asked, and Sigurd immediately nodded its head. "Of course, Master. I-"
"And before you continue, please don't call me Master… Considering how you look, that's not going to help the image I might get in the future…" The old man interrupted, before Sigurd, who stopped speaking rather confused then nodded its head. "Right… Then what do you wish for me to call you?" The Core Guardian asked, and Eisen just shrugged.
"Eisen, I guess. Just not Master." Eisen responded, before Xenia looked at him with a smirk. "Yeah, I get what you mean… Adding another Loli to your collection might not be very helpful." She added, before Sigurd snapped her head toward Xenia.
"Mistress, what do you mean with 'Loli'? I do not know that word." Sigurd said, and immediately Xenia's face became slightly flushed and she shook her head. "N-No, that's fine… I don't think we need to go over that…" Xenia answered quietly.