After everyone got ready, and Eisen finished inspecting some of the broken-down items that Fluke made, the group swiftly moved on with two new members, the Warforged and his Carrier-Golem.
The further that they got to the place the town was supposed to be, the more the group encountered stronger golems, with better materials making up their bodies. Some were made of low-quality iron, some even steel, and then there was the occasional Gold Golem as well. For some reason it seemed like whenever a Golem Core was destroyed, depending on the material that their bodies were made up of, they would get more experience in response as well. For example, the few Gold Golems they found gave them about three times as much experience as a normal one, even if they only encountered a handful of them.
In general, the Amount of Golems that they encountered increased a lot, so instead of being able to casually walk around, everyone had to really do their part, and Eisen even had to 'Unpack' all of his golems at some point, and because the Golems were supposed to be far, far stronger than any of the people in the group, they gave a lot of base experience to everyone, and it didn't take long until Eisen got a new little notification.
[You are now Level 199]
[Level Up Quest – Road to 200]
[Description] You have reached level 199 and as such, have gained the right to work toward reaching level 200. These are your requirements as calculated by your actions so far:
-Blacksmithing, Tailoring, Leatherworking, Enchanting and Alchemy Skills at Rank 4(2/5)
-Racial Skills at Rank 4 (Complete)
-Occupation Skill Crafting Space at Rank 4, Crafter's Mind at Rank 3 (0/2)
-Mana Manipulation, Flame of the Earth Magic at Rank 4, Mana Double, Mana Copy at Rank 3 (0/4)
-Woodworking, Cooking, Drawing, Tool Connection, Soul Engineering, Truth Seeing Eye, Farming, Mining, Masonry Skills at Rank 3 (3/ 9)
-Reach a Soul Strength of at Least 300(Incomplete)
-Spend A Total of 24 Hours practicing within your Soul Realm(0/24)
[Reward] Level increased to 200
[Failure] Not Possible
"Ah, there it is." Eisen said with a smile on his face after ranger shot through the latest Golem Core, and nodded his head in satisfaction. "Hmm, most of these things don't seem too far away... the 24 hour practice is do-able as well... Alright, let's do this, then." Eisen smirked to himself, before the others in his group turned to him confused.
"Did something happen, Grandfather?" Kiron asked, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head. "Yeah, I just got my next Level Up Quest, so I'd like to get to it pretty soon... How far away is the town, Fluke?" The old man asked, and Fluke looked up into the sky for a few moments before looking around the environment.
"Not too far. Maybe another one or two hours." Fluke explained, so Eisen moved his fingers through his beard with a nod. "Perfect, then I hope we'll be able to deal with the Golem King quickly."
"Yeah, although, judging from the fights so far, it shouldn't be a huge issue." The Warforged said with a wry smile, looking at the young pink-haired girl who was stashing away lots of materials inside of her backpack, while Eisen nodded his head. "I guess so, but even then... Hm?"
Just when Eisen was about to respond, he was sent a message by one of his fellow Originals.
[Jyuuk] We found the town, it's at the easternmost part of the island. Shouldn't be hard to miss, it's surrounded by some hills, everything else is pretty flat
Confused, Eisen raised his eyebrows and looked over toward Fluke. "Where did you say you found the town last time again?" He asked, and the Warforged crossed his arms with a slight frown, "At the westernmost part of the island, why?"
"You're not coincidentally very bad with directions?" He asked, but Fluke just stared back with a blank expression.
"I literally have a compass in my hand. No, I'm not bad with directions." Fluke replied and then pointed into the distance. "We just be able to see it over there, the town was directly in the center of some hills acting like walls." Fluke said, and with a slight frown, Eisen stepped over toward Bree's backpack and reached inside, grabbing one of his own small mechanical tools, throwing it in the direction of that Fluke was pointing at before mentally commanding it to start flying further in that direction while connecting to the device in Eisen's hand.
"And a few moments later, it was pretty clear that something else was going on. At the spot where Fluke was saying the town was supposed to be was instead a giant crater, and Eisen smirked in response as he showed the screen to the Warforged. "Seems like we should head east instead. A friend of mine just let me know that it's in that direction, so we should probably get going there." Eisen told him and the group, before Bree opened her eyes wide in response. "Wait, East?! Isn't that where Jyuuk and Xenia were going?" She asked, as if something horrible just happened, and Eisen slowly nodded his head.
"Yeah, Jyuuk messaged me... Something wrong with that?" He explained and Bree looked at her brother with shock in her eyes, and Sky seemed to react in a very similar way, so that Eisen couldn't just let that be.
"Both of you tell me what's going on right now." The old man told them, worried that something was going on, before Bree looked down at the ground embarrassedly, "We made a bet with them to see who found the Town first..."
With a wry smile, Eisen slowly shook his head and sighed out deeply while catching CB-1 as it was deactivating itself mid-air. "And what did you bet?" He asked while the group slowly started moving, and Sky scratched his cheek with a wry smile.
"One week's worth of Dessert?" Sky explained, so Eisen just sighed once more, although he inevitably began to laugh. "Now, that's something I haven't heard in a long time." The old man said with a laugh, just remembering back at how something similar happened with Tony, Natsuo and Melody when they were kids. Tony and Melody's were only about two years apart in age, but Natsuo was a whole five years older, so he ended up turning into a little bit of the classic 'Mean Older Brother'.
For the most part, he was just messing with them in ways that they had no chance to fight back. For example, Natsuo would often just sit in front of the TV, and when there were episodes of a show he saw before but Tony and Melody didn't, he would bet with them about what would happen next in the show while pretending he never saw the episode before. Usually, they bet small things like Dessert, so this whole thing kind of reminded Eisen a little bit of that.
"Well, I guess that's good to know then. I'll make sure the two of them get their winnings." Eisen said with a light chuckle, and immediately, Bree and Sky stared at Eisen as if he just stabbed them in the back, "H-How could you?! I thought you would help us out, maybe give us our actual dessert in secret... But you would do something like that?!" Bree asked with shock in her voice, and Sky nodded his head and looked down at his book.
"I knew it, the heroes in stories are all just lies, aren't they?" Sky said with a frown, and Eisen simply began to laugh as the group began to walk toward the east during the flow of this conversation, "Stop being so melodramatic, will you?" The old man asked them, and the two Fey-Kin twins looked at each other with sad expression.
"What a grim old man he is." Sky said first, and Bree immediately nodded her head, "You couldn't be more right."
While just smirking as the two of them were saying this, Eisen kept walking forward with the group behind him, and signaled at them when the next golem was within sight.
And so, the group just continued on toward the east, while Bree and Sky were still crying about the loss of the greatest treasure there ever was. Dessert.
---
And a few hours later, they all reached a relatively flat area, in the middle of which the large hills could be seen that both Fluke and Jyuuk mentioned. But the Warforged was still rather confused about everything.
"That's so weird... That's definitely the town, but I could've sworn it was back where we were before..." Fluke muttered quietly, and Eisen slowly crossed his arms and looked at the hills while activating his Truth-Seeing Eyes, smirking as he did so.
"Oh, I'm sure it was." The old man said next, before Fluke looked up at him confused, but Eisen didn't seem to want to continue the explanation any further.
Instead, he just picked up the pace a little, somewhat rushing the group to hurry up as well as he was doing so. He didn't even worry about collecting every little piece of precious materials, and was just staring at the hills in front of him. And soon enough, Fluke warned them about something.
"Wait, I think there's a new type of Golem! Seems like a flying ice-type?" The Warforged said while preparing one of his items that could even be used at a range, but Eisen swiftly stopped him and just extended his hand forward in the direction of that 'Flying Ice Golem', which swiftly approached the group and landed on Eisen's index and middle fingers, before the old man looked at the Eagle with a smile.
"Nice to see you, Aotori. So Jyuuk's nearby?" The old man asked as he started to run his hand over the Ice-Covered Bird's head, and Aotori herself swiftly leaned into his hand as he was doing so, slightly nodding her head.
"Alright, then let's hurry up, shall we? Can you show us where Jyuuk is at exactly?" Eisen asked the Eagle, and she quickly replied with a single nod and then flapped her wings, causing a bit of cold air to spread around the area, before she started flying again, probably right toward where Jyuuk was waiting for them.
And so, the group swiftly followed them, while Fluke somewhat embarrassedly went back to fiddling with one of his items using the tools hidden in his fingers.
"That reminds me, wasn't Jyuuk attempting an experiment with his Necromancy and an Eagle-Egg?" Kirisho asked curiously, being reminded of it when she saw the first monster that the Beastperson had tamed, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response.
"Yes, I'm pretty sure it worked relatively well, but the natural aging slowed down heavily, so at the same time it's taking far longer for the egg to initially hatch. It should be there soon though. Probably." Eisen pointed out, and the Mist-Spirit smiled back at him. "The way I am right now, I'm unable to tame any monsters, so I'm kind of jealous when I see your three cuties or how pretty Jyuuk's are." Kirisho admitted with a light laugh, and Eisen raised his eyebrows in response. Kirisho usually stayed very silent and closed-off, so he was really surprised to see her in that way, but Eisen didn't really mind it at all.
After the conversation he and Kirisho had on the day before reaching the central island, they didn't really speak all that much, and especially when hearing her say something like that, Eisen felt like he wanted to do something for her. It was true that she wasn't able to properly use a lot of abilities that other people took as normal as a Ghost-type monster, but Eisen already had a pretty nice idea, and swiflty turned toward the woman next to him.
"Kirisho, what's your favorite animal, by the way?"