Eisen and the others just waved at the four grandmaster craftsmen and the Innkeeper as they started riding their carriage toward the right tunnel to exit town.
It was actually a little bit cramped in the back, although that was because literally everyone beside Eisen was back there right now. Once they left town, Kiron wanted to sit back down on the roof, and Bree and Sky would take over driving for most of the ride. And if he needed to, Eisen could just shrink down a bit.
But this was all just the case when considering the possibility that Fafnir was too large to fit into the carriage later on once they had him evolve. Something that Eisen was looking for a good enogh spot for currently, until he found a place with nobody really closely around, and then just stopped the carriage to get Fafnir out.
"Sigurd, you ready?" Eisen asked with a curious smile, and the Core Guardian swiftly appeared out of nowhere and nodded its head, "Yup, ready as I'll ever be!" It exclaimed, so Eisen just lightly smiled and allowed Sigurd to start the evolution process, making the Core Guardian disappear inside of the Dungeon again. Just then, Fafnir's body was enveloped in light and his body started to grow and morph, just so slightly changing shape on top of size.
In total, Fafnir's back-height while he was on all fours was similar to Cabarum's, meaning that the consequence was now very clear. "Yeah, you're not fitting into the Carriage, bud..." Eisen said and then started to look the dragon's body over a bit, trying to figure out in what way he changed other than just size-wise.
He now had two small horns starting at the sides of his forehead running back over his scalp, and his wings seemed to be more sturdy and capable as well. In general, Fafnir's claws and fangs were sharper and larger as well. His body was now giving off slight constant heat that would make it rather uncomfortable to keep your hand on his scales for a while, but it wasn't noticeable just a couple of meters away from him.
Fafnir's body had apparently grown a lot stronger as well, at least that's what Eisen judged from the slight muscular bulk he gained.
"Hmm, maybe..." Eisen muttered quietly, before then trying something important out, "Fafnir, open the gate." Eisen commanded, and without hesitation, the Dragon jumped high into the air and created a giant gate underneath his body, roughly seven or so meters in height.
But the gate didn't only change in size either. The 'Border' that was before just made of regular stone bricks was now more decorated. At the side were two large stone pillars with Draconic carvings on them, and the door itself was sturdier than ever before as well. Before, it seemed like it could break down with a single slight push, but now that it was made of well-treated, thick, and strong wood, that seemed rather unlikely.
With a smile on his face, Eisen increased his size to the max and pushed the new gate open, soon finding himself in the new reception area.
Since the reception area had now been properly set as an 'Asset' for the Dungeon, it seemed it was rather easy for Sigurd to make it that it was slightly changed during the process of evolution as well, just like the regular floors were.
The regular dungeon parts would be gaining extra strength and size, would start being slightly more decorated and intricate, and in the case of the forest areas, more vibrant, as if overflooding with life, at least compared to before.
But compared to that, the reception area had actually changed rather rapidly. They already spoke about it sometime before, but Sigurd at some point suggested to make the reception area some kind of 'Hangout' spot to get people to stay there for longer and leech as many DP off of them as possible to increase the size and range of the dungeon more easily.
So now, that had started! Since the size of the entrance gate was now so large, Sigurd just added a second floor to the reception building and generally made it 'blow up' in volume, and was currently busy trying to set some tables and chairs down there. Generally, it looked really nice!
The second floor had a half-circle gap inbetween its edge and the gate so that you could practically just look at the gate opening, or out through it if it was open.
But once Sigurd noticed that Eisen was now actually inside of the Dungeon, it appeared in front of the old man with a broad grin. Sigurd itself hadn't changed much, really. The patterns on its body were slightly different again, but other than that, it seemed to be mostly the same.
"Soo? How do you like it?" It asked with a broad grin, before Eisen just slightly chuckled in response, "I like it a lot, actually. But if this reception building is this large, we need to increase the size of the rest of the town as well, right?" The old man pointed out, and Sigurd nodded its head as if it was already expecting that.
"Of course, of course! But not that we've ranked up again and we have accumulated a fair bit of DP, we can increase our limit of Monsters that we have out at a time without constantly having iterations of them spawn! So I was thinking that each 'Basic' type would get two more versions of it as assistants to decrease the load of everything!" Sigurd explained, so Eisen just slightly smiled and nodded his head in response, "I see, that sounds like a good idea. Do that if you can, yeah. But I think for now, there won't be anyone to help you out. If you noticed, Fafnir's a bit too large to fit in the carriage, so I just thought of another task for him."
Eisen pointed out, and Sigurd raised its brows curiously, "Oh? What kind of task?" It asked, before Eisen just started to smirk broadly, "Just wait and see, I'll be getting started with that in a bit." The old man pointed out, "I just wanted to check and see how everything's going in here right now. It's looking good, really."
"Thank you! But still, I'm pretty curious about what you're planning on doing now..." Sigurd explained, but Eisen just chuckled in response.
"Fine, fine, I'll get started already. I might need to make an extra item later on though, but I don't really know just yet." Eisen pointed out, "After all, I've never tried this before..." He laughed quietly, and then made his way out of the Dungeon with a slight smile on his face, swiftly telling Fafnir to close the gate again, and then looked over toward Bree and Sky as they were getting into position to drive the carriage from now on.
"I'll always be around you, so just yell if something's wrong, alright?" The old man told them, and Sky slowly started to frown, "Why, what are you doing? And where are you going?" The Fey-Kin boy asked, and Eisen just smirked as he placed both his hands onto Fafnir's back and pushed his body up onto his back while slightly increasing his size to be a better fit for the shape of Fafnir's body.
"I'll just be around here hunting a bit, that's all." Eisen explained with a smile on his face, and even from inside the carriage, the five half-dragons and Eisen's two apprentices were staring outside at him, while Sky was just baffled. On the other hand, Bree was rather excited, just like the three Monster Children that joined Eisen on Fafnir's back to support him during the fights to come.
"You're going to ride a dragon into combat?" Parc asked with an excited grin, and the old man just softly laughed in response, "Yup, you could word it like that." Eisen pointed out, and then ran his hand over the dragon's head.
"Sorry bud, but you're alright with not sleeping for a while, right?" Eisen asked him, before the Dragon just nodded his head in response, making his rider just grin slightly.
"Well then, should we get going again? I'm itching to level up right now." The old man pointed out, and Bree swiftly got Cabarum to move, while Eisen made Fafnir do the same. For now, there wasn't much around here that could give Eisen any proper experience, as all the monsters were maybe rank 3 or 4, and that really wasn't much of a challenge to Eisen.
Either way, after an hour or two, they finally reached an area where some stronger monsters were living, so Eisen swiftly made Fafnir speed up while he explained the tactics to the Dragon he was riding on, the three monsters in front of him, and the Core Guardian that simply knew everything that was going on around here.
"Alright, once we see a monster, I want Caria to restrain it with vines, Sal to help my sword hit its vitals through his marionette magic, and Melissa to get her Drill- and Carrier-Bees to extract mana crystals from those monsters bodies and then bring them here, just dropping them into the air directly above us, so that Sigurd can instantly bring them inside, alright?" Eisen suggested, and it seemed like everyone was swiftly agreeing to the tactic, although the old man didn't expect them to majorly complain anyway.
And while these obviously weren't the greatest tactics he could have come up with, they ended up working pretty well! The monsters currently in the area here were those that lived in packs, so they always met multiple of them at once, so the kind of speedy take-down that Eisen's tactic was hoping for was perfect here.
But of course, since Eisen had his Demonic Yin transformation active and was using his Demonic Sword, he was basically just ripping these monsters apart anyway. And it seemed like Sal's Marionette-magic based control that was guiding Eisen's blade toward the Monster more quickly was synergizing amazingly with the weak consciousness that the blade itself currently had that was basically just capable of slightly guiding itself toward the target as well.
Maybe this way the Sword's consciousness was able to learn how to improve on this ability a bit? That would surely be amazing, although Eisen wasn't entirely sure if that was going to happen.
But either way, he didn't really need to be sure anyway. He just had to wait. Either way, this blade of his would develop into a great item, Eisen was completely sure of that.
And just as he was thinking that, the old man managed to level up for the first time today, a quite nice turn of events.
[You are now level 205]
