"We managed to do a lot today, huh?" Eisen sighed out with a smile on his face while setting up his tent for the night.
"Mhm! Your Bonus stats really make a huge difference! How many levels did you gain again?"
"Oh, I'm at level 32 now, so eight."
"Cool!" Bree exclaimed with Glee in her voice, and at this point, Eisen got pretty curious about something.
"Actually, what's your level, Bree?" Eisen asked, and Bree smiled brightly before answering.
"I'm level 83. Hehe…"
Eisen raised his eyebrows high in surprise and then asked his next questions. "Level 83? Then these guys shouldn't be doing anything for your level, right?"
They Fey-kin shook her head and shrugged slightly in response. "Not really, but that's fine! I can't fight by myself anyway, so I'm fine with waiting until you get closer to my level so that we can share experience~!"
"So you're not getting any experience at all?"
"Nope! If the level difference is higher than 20, then only the one that kills the monsters actually gets the experience…"
"Well, then I'll hurry up so that you can level up as well!" Eisen laughed and scratched his beard happily. But then he frowned at something. "Wait, then why did Hendrick make such a big deal about being level 50?"
Bree looked up into the sky and shrugged again. "I don't know… but what I definitely know is that he shouldn't be a Rank 4 adventurer… Usually, rank 4 adventurers are at the very least level 100… and then only barely even if they managed to do something amazing. The peak of Rank 4 Adventurers are… Level 150? I'm not sure, I'm only a Rank 2 adventurer myself…" Bree began to fidget with her fingers and looked to the side.
"I see… then maybe he used his connections? Or bribed his way up the ladder?"
"Maybe… I don't know, usually, Guild Masters are hard to bribe or pressure."
"Let's not think about that for now, though. Hendrick is not a good person, so we shouldn't waste our thoughts on him. How about I make us some dinner?" Eisen suggested and walked over to Bree's backpack, getting out the basic cooking kit as well as the ingredients he needed.
First, Eisen set up a proper campfire by stacking different thick branches on top of each other, and then set up the tripod base, where later the pan would be placed, over it.
"Now, what could I use as a preparation surface?" Eisen asked himself in a low voice and looked around until he saw a small boulder at the edge of the small clearing where they took up camp.
"Perfect." Eisen told himself and walked over to the Boulder, then summoned his two mana doubles. When he got back to town, he tested a few things out with the doubles again. For some reason, they couldn't fight at all. Eisen even had them attack him, but the only things that he felt when they swung at him with full force was a slightly uncomfortable feeling, even when using the Zweihänder.
But they could lift things normally. If Eisen had one double summoned, it could lift about half the weight that he could, and if he had two both of them summoned, they could lift about a third. It seemed like their strength simply depended on Eisen's own.
So, in order to be able to move the Boulder as easily as possible, Eisen worked together with the two doubles to lift it up and move it closer to their tents and the campfire. Luckily, Eisen's strength was now already higher than what it ever could have been in real life, otherwise, he never would have been able to lift it even with the help of his doubles.
After that was done, Eisen unsummoned them and placed his palms on the top of the rock's surface, pouring his mana inside. He then formed it into a large, flat cuboid and activated transmutation to form the boulder into that shape, until there was a big stone block in front of Eisen.
Next, Eisen grabbed the self-filling cup and poured some water over the top surface, then used a rug to properly clean it up.
Then, at last, Eisen cracked his knuckles and got to work. He opened up the small box holding his cooking knife and activated tool connection, then placed a boar rack onto the surface and cut away the meat left on the exposed bones.
Before preparing the meat further, Eisen poured a little bit of oil onto the pan and started the fire, placing the pan over it to heat it up.
After that, he cut small crosshatch patterns into the fatty parts, careful not to cut too far into the meat, and grabbed the bags filled with seasoning, and seasoned the meat's surfaces completely with salt and pepper.
Once that was done, Eisen grabbed a small bowl and crushed up mustard seeds before placing them inside together with some fennel and olive oil. Eisen stirred the mixture together properly and applied it thinly onto the meat.
Shortly afterward, Eisen placed the Boar rack onto the pan. While the meat was being grilled in the pan, Eisen moved on to something else.
Whenever they saw something that could be eaten in the forest, like mushrooms or dandelions, they picked them up to use for dinner.
So, Eisen grabbed some of these things and cleaned them up with fresh water. He then cut up some of the mushrooms and crushed up some nuts and place them into a bowl together with dandelion leaves and then grabbed some of the onions that he bought in town.
He peeled the outside layers away and then cut one of the onions in half, then finely chopped them into slices before adding them to the salad as well.
At last, Eisen made a bit of an easy olive oil dressing by adding a bit of vinegar to the some olive oil, and then put in some salt and pepper as well. He poured the dressing into the bowl and then mixed it into the salad. By the time that it was finished, Eisen flipped the boar rack to grill the other side as well.
Since he was now mostly finished and only needed the rack to finish, Eisen cleared up the stone block and cleaned the surface again.
And since the slab was quite big, Eisen split off half of it and then split that part in half again to make stone seats, while he slightly widened the top surface of the slab so that there would be enough space to eat on it.
He then grabbed two of the wooden plates that came with the cooking kit and placed them onto the stone table together with wooden knives and forks.
As the Boar Rack seemed to be finished, Eisen grabbed a larger wooden plate and placed it on there, then waited to let it cool down a little bit while he helped Bree finish setting up the tents. A few minutes later, Eisen and Bree sat down at the stone table.
Eisen cut up the rack into chops and gave Bree and himself two each together with some salad.
And when he figured that he was finished preparing the dish, he got a notification.
[You made Wild Boar Chops with a fresh forest Salad]
[Wild Boar Chops]
[Quality – Highest][Rank – 0]
[Description] Boar Chops made out of the meat of a wild boar. It has been simply seasoned with salt and pepper
[Fresh Forest Salad]
[Quality - High][Rank – 0]
[Description] A fresh salad made mostly out of things found in a forest. It has been made with Dandelion, Mushrooms, Onions, and Nuts, and has been dressed with a simple olive oil dressing.
[Cooking Skill Learned]
"Great! For what I had to work with, this turned out pretty well! Dig in, Bree! There's enough for seconds!" Eisen laughed out and then began to cut up one of the boar chops on his plate. Bree smiled and nodded.
"Okay~! Thank you so much, Eisen~! It looks great!"
"Haha, thank you! I hope it tastes great as well!"
Eisen and Bree ate and talked for a while. When they finished eatinging, both of them began to clean up and stomped out the fire.
Once that was done, they entered their respective tents and fell asleep.
---
Benjamin usually logged off whenever his character slept, after all, he would just lose two hours without doing anything otherwise.
When he was on his way to the bathroom, Benjamin heard his phone ring and picked it up, hearing the voice of Tony on the other side. "Hey, Dad! How are you?" He asked with deep exhaustion hidden behind a façade of energetic happiness.
"Hey Tony, I'm alright. Just got up from the capsule again. How's it on your end?"
"It's going a bit better, actually. I just wanted to ask you about the Family Reunion again. It's summer vacation soon, so I thought it would be a good time to come over then. I already talked to Natsuo and Melody, they said they've got time as well. And the kids obviously do as well. We thought the Monday two weeks from now would be a good time."
"Ah, yes, of course. You know your old man doesn't have anything else to do, so you can come whenever you want. Just make sure to tell me when you're on your way, alright?" Benjamin asked while noting down the day when the reunion would start in his calendar. "And for how long do you all want to stay?" He asked next, and Tony seemed to take a short break before answering to think.
"I was thinking maybe a week if that's alright?" Tony said before long.
"What, only a week? Well, you can stay however long you want." Benjamin answered with a low chuckle.
"Thanks, Dad. I guess we can figure that out once we're actually there. That's pretty much it. I've got to pick up Katy and Sean from school."
"Sure, let's do that. Tell them their grampa loves them!"
"I will don't worry." Tony laughed softly. "Talk to you later. Love you, Dad."
"Love you too, Tony." Benjamin replied with a bright smile on his face.
With his mood lifted up to basically infinite heights, he began to nostalgically walk through his house. He made a lot of things during his lifetime. Tools, clothes, weapons, all kinds of things. But the ones that meant the most to him were those that he created for the sake of his family.
The pancakes he made every Sunday morning, or the patches he put onto his kids' pants when they fell and ripped them up. The costumes he made for Halloween, or the ties or broach he made for their proms as gifts. And not to speak of the very house that Benjamin was still living in to this day.
The walls that surrounded his family in their day-to-day lives, the floor that they were walking on, to the fireplace in front of which he read stories to Natsuo, Melody, and Tony nearly every single day for half a year after his wife passed away.
This empty building that housed only him for over a decade, where he spent nearly every second of every minute inside of his workshop, that felt just oh so emptier the past two years that he was unable to work since it only reminded him of what was missing.
Finally, it would be filled with life once more and hopefully turn back into a home.
----------
[Eisen]
[Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][Occupation - Omni Craftsmaster][Level - 32]
[HP - 1040][MP - 720]
[STR - 73][END - 72][AGI - 70][INT - 40][WIS - 40][CHA - 10]
[Titles]
-[Original of the Mechanical Arts]
-[Limitbreaker V]
[Skills]
-[A Dwarf's Hands][Rank - 1][Level - 95]
-[A Giant's Strength][Rank - 1][Level - 47]
-[Alchemy][Rank - 2][Level - 11]
-[Appraisal][Rank - 1][Level - 7]
-[Blacksmithing][Rank - 1][Level - 58]
-[Cooking][Rank - 0][Level - 1]
-[Crafting Space][Rank - 0][Level - 1]
-[Drawing][Rank - 1][Level - 6]
-[Enchanting][Rank - 1][Level - 19]
-[Golemancy][Rank - 0][Level - 1]
-[Leatherworking][Rank - 2][Level - 4]
-[Mana Copy][Rank - 1][Level - 4]
-[Mana Double][Rank - 2][Level - 42]
-[Mana Manipulation][Rank - 1][Level - 72]
-[Swordsmanship][Rank - 1][Level - 57]
-[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 6]
-[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 10]
-[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 49]