Just a couple of hours later, Eisen managed to bring both Aulu and Cabarum to Rank 3, which he was pretty glad about. At this point, at the very least the Horse Automaton Eisen was sitting on should be able to continue his job like normal.
And so, Eisen just returned to the carriage with the two Demonic Automata with him. He was wondering if he could somehow extend it even to the whole carriage, but that might have to wait a little longer... He at the very least needed an occasion. Part of his Demonic Title told him to go to hell and get approval from the Gods of the Underworld, so he figured that would be a good enough time for that.
Either way, now, the old man deactivated his Demonic Transformation, also turning Cabarum and Aulu back into their regular forms, before hooking Cabarum back up to the carriage to have him pull it properly again.
Luckily, it seemed like everything worked out alright and the Metallic Horse was able to pull the carriage without any issues whatsoever.
It seemed like the was another issue, however. And that issue could be found in the form of Jealousy.
"That's so not fair!" Caria exclaimed with a huff as she crossed her arms and looked out the carriage's front-window, "Why can they level up with Eisen but we can't?!" She asked, and Eisen looked at them surprised before placing the small Spatial-Gem Orbs filled to the brim with different highly-compressed ores and gems into a crate in the carriage.
"Well, they're both just Rank 3. You two are Rank 4. I did want to go out with Sal sometime to bring him to Rank 4, but only if he really wanted to." Eisen pointed out with a light smile as he looked at the Spider-Boy, although he quite swiftly nodded his head in response, while Caria and Melissa both still seemed pretty annoyed at not being allowed to go and level up.
With a slight sigh, Eisen crossed his arms and thought about it for a while, before coming to a conclusion. "Well, we're heading back to Melroe for now. We're taking a break once at a small town, and during that time I'm going out with Sal to bring him to Rank 4, and then we'll see what we can do in the Mountains. Alright?" The old man suggested, and the three monsters quickly nodded their heads in response.
"Yay!" Melissa exclaimed happily, but Eisen just sligthly rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Before then, all of you need to tell me how exactly you want to fight. Until now you only took on passive roles, but now you guys will be more active. If you want some kind of staff or weapon, just tell me, alright?" Eisen told them with a strict expression, before the three children quickly nodded their heads and excitedly rushed through the Dungeon gate to figure all of that out, while Eisen himself made his way out of the carriage and back onto the bench at the front again, where Sky and Bree were both waiting.
"Do you think that's really a good idea? I mean, they're just... kids... Outwardly and Inwardly..." Sky pointed out with a slightly concerned frown, and the old man immediately nodded his head. "Of course, I would prefer for them to grow safely through actions, but neither Caria nor Melissa have been gaining any major amount of experience through that anymore. And if they simply can't level up without combat at this point, they'll be stuck in a Child's body forever. Especially you should know that that's not necessarily a great thing." The old man said with a smirk, and Sky just looked back with a frown, slowly nodding in response as Eisen started to drive the carriage forward.
"And either way, from how it went so far, Caria will probably be like a young Teenager at Rank 5, and then at Rank 6, I'd guess she'd be like she was in her Late Teens. Melissa seems to be a step behind in that regard, but still." The old man explained, before moving his fingers through his beard with a slight frown.
"I am quite curious about Sal's physical progress in that regard though... Well, either way, for now, let's just go forward with my plan, shall we? Once we reach that other town, things should have settled down with the new Artificials."
Just then, Sky and Bree stared at Eisen confused and surprised, because he said something they didn't hear about yet. "New Artificials?" The Pink-Haired Fey-Kin asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "Yes, new Artificials. The 'Final Wave' of sorts. Thousands, or even tens of thousands of them already appeared since earlier today, I'm pretty sure. And from now on, there will constantly be new ones appearing all over the place." Eisen explained to them, "You actually already met two of them a little while ago." The old man chuckled, making the two siblings realize that that's what those two that Sky sent off with the Titan Porter were.
"Isn't that kind of... scary?" Sky asked with a frown, and without hesitation, Eisen nodded his head.
"Of course it is, but you don't need to worry. There might be some bad guys amongst them, but nothing will ever happen to either of you, I'll make sure of that." The old man reassured them with a laugh, but for some reason, neither of them could really feel safe with the thought of so many fake beings popping up all over the place.
After all, they knew how ridiculously insane the five people they were based on were... How could the Artificials be normal in any way?
---
"You need any help over here?" Eisen asked with a slight chuckle as he stepped through into the small space that had been established as the currently deepest possible floor, before Sigurd appeared right behind him with a slight nod. "Please... You said we'd arrive at town when? Tomorrow? I'm not even done creating the raw space for Floor 7, not to mention this Floor 8! It's been established and all, but it just gets exponentially slower the more I focus on multiple floors in construction..." It explained, seemingly rather stressed, and Eisen just chuckled before grabbing his Multitool with a smirk.
"Don't worry, this old man is going to take care of Floor 8! Just let me know immediately if I'm doing anything wrong, and then focus on finishing Floor 7. If we can't finish in time, we can even work on the last floor while everyone is going through the first seven anyway. That shouldn't be an issue, right?" Eisen suggested, and Sigurd slowly nodded its head.
"I guess... Then thanks... For now, this space just needs to be widened evenly... so possibly make it spherical, if you can." The Core Guardian asked of the old man, who swiftly nodded his head in response.
"You can count on me." Eisen chuckled, swiftly grabbing his Multitool with a broad grin on his face, changing its shape into that of a Pickaxe before increasing his size as much as he could.
As Eisen gained the Mining Ability of being able to break things down with mana, this was actually a rather easy job, considering that the old man could now compress his mana properly. And so, Eisen compressed his mana inside of the Pickaxe itself and tried to infuse it with the 'Breakdown' Ability all the whilst letting mana naturally seep out of his body into the surrounding areas to slowly and passively break them down to make Eisen's job a bit easier.
And so, the old man just continued on and on with mining out the raw rock that this Dungeon space was made of. Every time he cracked some up and made it fall to the ground, it would just disintegrate nearly instantly, which was quite pleasant if he had to be honest. This meant that Eisen could just continue on mining without worry.
But most importantly, this gave Eisen's new Multitool a lot of experience, enough to let him upgrade it to Rank 2, joining the Sword at that stage!
Physically, the two Ego-Weapons hadn't necessarily changed that much, there were just minor parts. For example, the handles changed their shape to fit more easily into Eisen's hands, or the weight distribution changed just so slightly to better fit Eisen's movement.
But the biggest change in these two items really wasn't the physical part, but rather the 'Mental' Part. The Higher the Ego-Rank rose, the more passive support he got from them.
For example, the Demonic Sword sometimes seemed as if it was moving into a certain direction itself, as if to fit Eisen's intent to make it possible to move it even faster, or to switch directions more swiftly.
This was more subtle with the Multitool, but it definitely was still there. The first time that Eisen noticed it for this Yang tool was when he was changing the 'Mode'. For a moment, Eisen could have sworn that the move-able pieces were going into the right position far more easily than at the start, or rather nearly on their own.
All of these could be things that Eisen was imagining, but he would surely see the truth behind it in the future if he kept using this tool and his new weapon properly.
It was a shame that he wasn't able to properly make use of the Dungeon himself to level up, but that was a sacrifice he had to make. Right now it wasn't like the monsters here in the Dungeon were really all that much trouble to him anyway, so he wouldn't be able to level up using them for now.
Either way, for now, Eisen continued on digging up the whole space that Sigurd wanted him to, before the Core Guardian appeared next to him with a broad grin.
"Floor 7 is nearly ready! Growing everything right now with Caria's help, and then I'm installing the fake sky! But for now I'll take over here~!" Sigurd said, seemingly a fair bit less stressed after seeing the amount of work that Eisen had done so far.
"Alright, then I'll see if there's anything else I can do until we get to Town." The old man said with a smirk on his face, because he actually already had a pretty good idea about what he could try to make. After all, his plan was to set up a shop, and there was one thing that many people here in this world that opened shops had before opening a proper shop.... A Stall! And that stall was something that Eisen would be working on next, and it was supposed to be a pretty neat one as well.