Eisen stood there in front of his magic workstations, his hand over his face as he was trying to figure out what exactly was going on. Why did he say that just now? Why did he speak as if he had made something like that before?
His mind was just hazy as if he was drunk, and he had no idea what exactly he was doing or was supposed to be doing, but then, all of a sudden, that feeling of haziness disappeared together with the feeling of Eisen feeling like something was wrong. Eisen simply felt... Ecstatic.
He thought he saw a light blue flicker of a notification for a moment as well, but that was probably just imagination, together with what he just said. There surely wasn't anything wrong with it at all! Technically his body was being pumped full of drugs at the moment, and he had noticed a bit of an effect before already in the sense that 'Waking up' felt a lot weirder than usual, so his mind drifting in weird directions in illogical ways was probably also part of that, at least that was so within Eisen's own logic at the moment.
"Alright, then let's continue, shall I?" Eisen said with a smile on his face, even feeling in such a great mood that he nearly would have started to whistle just there and then, but he was able to hold himself back from that.
For now, he had something else to take care of, which would start with reading through the note that Sky walked over to him with.
"Here, I managed to finish yours pretty quickly. Luckily it translated into the Common Language this time. It seems to be something similar to a Level-Up quest, basically it requires you to do a bunch of different things, although in a different way still." Sky explained, before handing the old man both the original note as well as what Sky managed to decypher from it, before Eisen tilted his head to the side just so slightly.
"What do you mean 'in a different way'?" He asked, and Sky scratched the back of his neck.
"Well... I'll just show you, this up here is a number, and it's a number out of ten. Right now it's '1'. My guess from concept and the writing around it is that there are ten tasks, and you are at the first one, which is to... Reach Level 300... After that, the writing will probably change and reveal the second task." Sky explained, and Eisen slowly nodded his head.
"Huh, I see... But level 300, isn't that going to be really hard to reach? Not even mentioning the time it will take to level up in the first place, it's going to take a long time to finish the two Level-Up quests I have to do, right?" The old man replied, and Sky nodded his head while scratching his neck.
"I mean, it's for sure going to take a while, but you Originals and Artificials level up a lot faster than regular people... Usually, reaching level 300 from 100 would reach maybe half a year of non-stop fighting, but for you guys it might take a month of a nice, calm pace?" Sky suggested with a wry smile, and then continued, "Although, considering where we're going, it might be even faster. It's not like any of you are as strong as your level suggests, so you can take monsters that are a good bit stronger than you to make you level up even faster. Especially with the items that you make, they have insane effects..." Sky pointed out, before the old man began to chuckle and smiled at the Fey-Kin in front of him.
"That's a fair point. And at the very least, I'll have something nice and steady to work toward again once I reach level 199." Eisen said with a smirk, before he remembered something. "Ah, right, talking about something nice to work toward... I'll not work on items for you yet, because I don't exactly have any way to create a good material-base for it. I could just make a book for you, but that would be a bit boring, right? Instead, I'll wait for my Enchanting skill to rank up again, and then I'll infuse some materials with your element." Eisen explained with a smile, and Sky nodded his head.
"That's fine! It's not like I'm in a rush with anything... And considering that I'm still not even Level 20, the monsters that I'll be able to fight in the first place will be pretty low-level..." He pointed out, and Eisen just scratched the back of his neck.
"Well, that's true... But I'm working toward Ranking the skill up again, so I'll have something ready for you pretty quickly." Eisen replied, and Sky nodded his head with a smile and then looked at the other notes in his hands.
"For now, I'll have to give these notes to the others. They all seem to say the same thing though, that each of you have to reach Level 300." Sky explained, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile before the young Fey-Kin boy turned around and made his way to the nearest Original within the dungeon.
"I guess I'll need to work on some weapons for myself as well, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself as he moved his fingers through his beard, trying to simply brainstorm a good type of weapon for himself, although it would probably take a while until he found something really good.
Either way, for now, he wanted to make some more general supportive items until Evalia finished the decorative parts on Bree's hammer. He had some more other items he wanted to make in mind, but that had to wait until either the four other new players beside Stahl, including Alnico, leveled up a bit more, or the old man managed to reach Rank 4 in his crafting skills to be able to manipulate the final rank of the items he was making.
For example, he was really excited about properly making a nice magic bow for Zyra, some gauntlets for Kyla, or a Samurai-Armor and a Katana for Samurai. But he couldn't really do that for now, and as such had to wait for a while. And all of the other items he wanted to make required either a special rank or a special material that the old man didn't currently have access to, and as such, he now had time to just experiment a bit!
Of course, that was mainly just done inbetween teaching his students about different skills! And he had a certain plan for what he wanted to make next, and called Sigurd over toward him just for that.
"You called?" The Core Guardian asked with a smile, before tilting its head to the side just so slightly, "And is everything alright? You seemed a bit dizzy before." Sigurd pointed out, and Eisen just shook his head.
"Don't worry, I'm fine. I was just speaking to myself and was messing around a bit." The old man replied, before continuing on with what Eisen actually wanted to ask this unique creation of his about.
"Can you explain to me how you work exactly? I simply followed the blueprint, but I don't exactly know all that much about why I was doing all that." He explained with a wry smile, and Sigurd nodded its head slowly.
"Of course. I am not sure how far your lack of knowledge about me extends, but I could start at the basics. By nature, I am an Ego-Item." It explained quite swiftly, placing its hand to its chest, and Eisen tilted his head to the side confused.
"An Ego-Item?" He asked, and Sigurd nodded its head swiftly. "Yes. Ego-Items are creations infused with a soul. To be more specific, I am an Ego-Golem, and my soul is contained within my core. Ego-Golems are some of the easiest-to-create Ego-Items there are, as even regular golems already copy what a living being is supposed to act like. I don't know the specifics about other Ego-Items, though, I am sorry." Sigurd apologized, but Eisen just shook his head.
"Don't worry, you know more about it than I do anyway. So is that why your Status-Screen is a mixture between an Item-Description and a Monster's Status?" Eisen asked, and Sigurd nodded its head immediately.
"Yes, I think so at the very least." Sigurd explained, before scratching its metallic cheek. "There is a Knowledge-Compendium in the form of a Library available for purchase once Fafnir and I reach Rank 4, there may be some information about Ego-Items there?" The Core Guardian Suggested, but Eisen just chuckled.
"That's fine, we already have two Knowledge-Compendiums in the form of Bree and Sky. I can ask them about that type of item." Eisen explained, and Sigurd nodded its head with smile. "Alright, you do that. Oh, and just so you know, we have managed to extend the tunnels quite a bit so far, up to the point where we could create the second floor. It's going to take a while to get the required DP, but when that happens, we can increase the size of the space." The Core Guardian explained, and Eisen just smirked.
"Oh, is that so? So are the monsters spawning inside there already?" The old man inquired, before Sigurd nodded its head. "Yes, they are. For the most part, there are two or three wolves together, but in larger rooms we have a pack led by the large wolf that Master Brody created." It answered, so Eisen moved his fingers through his beard with a grin.
"Could you talk to Jyuuk and Brody about adding one or two other beast-type monsters into the area? Just having wolves sounds a bit monotone, right? And by the way, how does the 'Loot' system work in Dungeons, I heard you can find some treasure here and there usually." Eisen said, and Sigurd simply smiled back and began to explain.
"Yes, it is possible to set treasure to be created within the dungeon, although it will generate by decreasing the DP collection, so I would not advise to do so yet." Sigurd suggested, "Well, it seems as if you don't have questions for me anymore. I will be on my way now to speak to the two Masters, then." It explained, and disappeared into mist before Eisen could even react, leaving the old man to think about a few different things yet again.
And the main thing that he wanted to think about was the creation of Ego Items, and figured that he should make his way over to Sky to ask him about it, hoping that he would be able to give him some information.
After all, Ego-Items seemed to be a type of item that were rather rare in the world and might be counted as a legend or myth, so the probability that the young Fey-Kin boy knew about it was rather high as far as Eisen was concerned.
And after making his way over toward Sky, who was currently speaking with Xenia about her note, the old man waited patiently for that conversation to be over, and Sky swiftly turned to Eisen while Xenia rushed away, seemingly still feeling unsure about how to react to Eisen's offer of having her move in with him.
He was genuinely concerned for her, and considering that she seemed to have health-issues going beyond her being in a wheelchair, judging from the different medications that Eisen saw at her home, it might be a good idea to not have her be alone all the time, just in case.
But either way, Eisen wouldn't push her, and instead just wanted to speak to Sky, so after a bit of explanation about what he wanted to do exactly, Eisen came to the conclusion of his question. "Basically, would you be able to tell me a bit about Ego-Items?"