"Alright then... You got everything? Nothing was stolen or accidentally left inside by someone?" Eisen asked one last time, and Sigurd immediately shook its head with a sigh. "As I told you the last five times, everything's cleared out, nobody and nothing that's not supposed to be there is left in the Dungeon, so we should be ready to go." The Core Guardian pointed out, and the old man looked down at it with a slight frown, crossing his arms.
"What is that supposed to mean? Just because I'm a bit worried? It's not like Fafnir is a normal 'Monster', so there might be an issue with the evolution, right?" Eisen replied, and Sigurd just shrugged in response. "I'm also going to evolve, and I feel like it should be fine." The Core Guardian explained, "So just take it easy and let's head off, and then find a proper spot to Evolve that's outside of puplic view."
"Fair enough, then... What about you, do you guys have everything?" Eisen asked as he then turned toward the rest of the group, which was currently loading whatever they might need into the carriage. And exactly that rest of the group was made up of Kirisho, Sky, Bree, as well as the three monster kids.
Eisen was pretty sure none of them necessarily needed anything special, and because they would be able to store a lot of things inside of the Dungeon itself, they had more than enough space to work and sleep inside of the carriage.
Right now, it was the early morning before the 'Official Launch', which was just about four in-game hours away now. Eisen was pretty sure that a town like this Merchant Town wasn't a starting location, but just in case, the old man wanted to leave before that many people started playing all at once and might mess some different routes up here and there.
It might be pretty chaotic for a while, so Eisen just wanted to stay away from any places that might be player-intensive for a day or two until everything calmed down a little.
Over the past few days inside of this Port-Town, Eisen just did a few minor things and even took a little break from crafting. Even if he loved it, taking a break every once in a while was nice as well. That didn't mean that he didn't craft at all, he did still 'Upgrade' the different Ego-Items that he handed out to different people and took a proper look at all the different ways that those items changed so far.
He managed to get his Ego-Item Creation skill to Rank 3 like this as well, but he didn't really work on anything in specific yet like he wanted to. For the most part, Eisen figured that he could just spend the time they're in the carriage for this anyway. He was hoping that Fafnir would still just open a gate at the same size as it is right now after evolving later on so that he could work properly inside of the Dungeon and maybe help out a little with the further Dungeon-Construction, but most importantly, he wanted to have that space to be able to properly smith.
As for the things for the 'infiltration' that Evalia and Stahl would be doing, Eisen managed to meet with the person that had a 'Status Fake' ability, which Eisen swiftly used to enchant some items that he had prepared for those two, with the single focus being to hide the fact they're a player by removing the actual 'Player' tag, change their name into a different one with a first and last name, and remove any titles that another person might be able to use to derive Stahl and Evalia's identity.
Eisen seemed to still be able to see through it with his truth-seeing eyes, but people with just a regular 'Appraisal' seemed to be unable to do that. It even faked out the special 'Appraisal Sphere' that Eisen made for the Dungeon, surprisingly.
But the reason that Eisen wanted to pretend that Evalia and Stahl were NPCs was pretty simple. To Merc and Cial, NPCs seemed to be things to be used, and they would probably not think of any NPC as an actual threat to them, so they might get careless.
And on top of that, it was just another way to make sure Stahl and Evalia couldn't be recognized. After all, after a single swift appraisal of those two, if anyone was suspicious of them somehow, they would be able to see that they aren't players and would just take it as a coincidence.
Otherwise, beside then actually sending them off to meet the Prince after filling them in on everything, nothing else happened. Komer would be staying here in this town for a while and would make sure that the mall would properly hit it off, but after that, he would meet back up with Eisen somewhere to maybe open other shops in different places.
Of course, Komer was also the one that was left with the responsibility of taking care of different shipments from and to the islands, as well as sending new people to the different islands either as settlers or visitors. The whole thing was happening through the Lord, who was convinced by the Prince to cooperate with them no matter what they wanted to do, so Komer was able to deal with it pretty smoothly.
And so, right now, Eisen and the others were about to set off toward their first destination... Melroe! They specifically chose a path that only had a few smaller towns along it that they could bypass depending on the situation.
"Then let's go now, shall we?" Eisen suggested with a broad smile on his face after having hooked Cabarum up to the carriage properly, and as the others didn't seem to have anything against it either, the old man just swiftly led the carriage off of the ship and onto the roads of this town, in the quickest path toward the gate in the direction they wanted to go, although just when they got a fair bit away from town, the old man got a chat message to take care of.
[Jyuuk] Been looking for these for a little while now, should be good enough, right?
Confused, the old man looked read through the message and was just about to ask what he was talking about, when a certain red, flaming eagle approached the carriage from the side and landed on the old man's arm with a bag in his mouth.
"Oh? What's this?" Eisen muttered to himself and held his hand out, before Akatori dropped the bag into his palm. And after rubbing his head against the old man as a 'Goodbye', Akatori quickly flew off again, and Eisen took a look at the contents of the bag.
To his surprise, there were nearly two dozen soul stones in there. Half of them belonging to 'Gray Wolves' or their monster derivatives, and the other half belonged to Gargantuan Steeds or their monster derivatives.
With a light smirk on his face, Eisen just nodded his head and immediately replied to the Beastperson.
[Eisen] They're just perfect, thank you
And so, Eisen now had the proper materials that he needed to turn both Cabarum and Aulu into Ego-Golems, although just then, Eisen noticed a different, third type of Soul Stone inside, one belonging to a small, red fox. The old man spoke to Jyuuk about his idea of making a small Fox Ego-Golem for Kirisho, and said that he would go ahead and look for a soul stone for that.
For now, the old man placed the bag into his chest pocket and continued driving until the group finally found a good place to start Fafnir's Evolution.
When he reached Level 100 in Rank 1, Eisen got the option to let him Evolve instead of activating it immediately. Whether this was because of Sigurd or because Fafnir was a Dungeon didn't matter, Eisen was just glad that it didn't happen with any players inside. He didn't know what would actually happen in the process, after all.
Either way, for now, there was no choice but to try and start the evolution. With that mindset, Eisen brought Fafnir out to the side of the road while Sigurd transported itself into the Dungeon. "Then let's start that Evolution, shall we?" Eisen said with a light smile as he went through the Dungeon-Menu and selected the Evolution-Option, and Fafnir's body immediately started to grow a fair bit larger. If he was at the size of a small- to medium-sized dog before, now he was at the size of a Newfoundland. Meaning, pretty damn big, at least when compared to before.
Eisen was sure that Fafnir would continue to grow larger and larger over time, meaning that sooner or later, he wouldn't even fit into the carriage anymore, which was something pretty concerning as far as Eisen was concerned.
[The Living Dungeon has Ranked-Up to Rank 2 and gained Five more floors, as well as a number of new options]
"Well then... Let's just take a look inside, shall we? Fafnir, open the gate." Eisen said immediately, and the small, at least when compared to others of that kind, Dragon swiftly did as asked and jumped into the air, causing a new Dungeon gate to appear. It was a fair bit larger, obviously, and as long as Eisen pulled is head down a little bit, he would probably be able to walk through there in his fully-grown form.
"Dammit... Can you make it any smaller?" Eisen asked with a slight frown, considering that this wouldn't fit into the carriage at all, and Fafnir slowly stood up from the top of the gate and jumped off of it. While this gate was disappearing, Fafnir just rolled up on the ground in a sleeping-position, and in front of his body, a new gate appeared, the same size as the one from the Rank 1 Dungeon were, so Eisen sighed in relief.
"Perfect. Good job, bud." Eisen chuckled and quickly ran his hand over Fafnir's sleeping head a few times, before he swiftly opened the door to the Dungeon and stepped inside, where Sigurd was already waiting for him.
It didn't seem like it changed all that much, besides how the tattoos changed a little, but Sigurd definitely seemed pretty excited.
"Ta-Dah!" It exclaimed happily, and Eisen nodded his head with a laugh.
"I'm glad you're happy, then. Erm, but listen, I think we should see about what we should do with the gate when it's in its large version..." The old man said and slowly turned around, and could already see that the door had changed a bit as well from this side.
Mainly, there was a large gate like the larger Rank 2 one, but inside of that gate there was still the regular Rank 1 Gate which was currently open.
The Ceiling was barely high enough to make the larger gate not reach past it, so Eisen nodded his head in satisfaction. "Nevermind, then. Let's just look into it when you two reach Rank 3. For now, should we go ahead and start working on the next floor?"