[You are now Level 257]
"Oh, how lucky." Eisen said with a light smile on his lips, swiftly waving the notification away as he got rid of the blade in his hand. After placing it into his Soul Storage, some of the blood that was on it before dropped down onto the ground, not having anything to stick to anymore.
"What's lucky?" Sal asked as he turned his head to look at Eisen, and the old man just chuckled as he had Fafnir slow down and jumped off the Dragon's back, "I leveled up just now." Eisen explained, before Sal whistled in response.
"You're getting even stronger. As expected of the man who managed to tame the great me." The Spider-Boy pointed out with a satisfied nod, before Caria looked at him with a wry smile, "Really? Great? You..?" She asked, her expression simply showing disgust while Sal turned around and stared at her angrily.
"You don't have to be that mean all the time!" He exclaimed, before Caria glared back at him with annoyance in her eyes, "Eeh? You're saying that now, after you were experimenting using my Mushlings all of last night?" Caria replied, before Sal crossed his arms with a huff and looked away.
"What, there's so many of them, and they have the same mental power you do, so they're really easy to control with my Marionette Magic. What do you want me to do, just not practice and possibly be no help to Eisen?" The boy asked with his eyes slightly squinted, and Caria just started grinding her teeth, "Oh, if that's how it is, then how about I practice a bit as well? I bred this new type of restraining vine that I couldn't use yet."
As the young girl said so, the ground under Sal started to split open in a few small spots and pitch-black thorny vines started to climb up from there, although they immediately shriveled up once Eisen tapped Caria's shoulder.
"The two of you, stop it already." Eisen said with a slight sigh as he took his Demonic Blade out of his Soul Storage, as he just placed it in there to get rid of the blood real quick, and then turned down toward the blade as it was shaking around in his hand.
"And you stop it as well, got it? Or else I'll just start fighting with my fists." The old man told his Ego-Sword with a deep frown. Due to the constant fighting during this trip for the sake of leveling up, Eisen was able to push the blade's Ego-Rank all the way to 5, at which point it actually started moving on its own, albeit at the level of a dog.
Either way, for now, Eisen would be standing 'Guard' while the others were setting up camp for tonight. It was the last night that they had to do so, since tomorrow they would be arriving at the village where Jyuuk woke up at.
Although, Eisen wasn't really standing Guard, considering that he had literally five half-dragons for that. Mostly, he was just on lookout for nice materials that he might be able to use. Meaning, that he swiftly squatted down in front of the monster that gave him his level-up just now.
"Hmm, so..." He muttered quietly as he placed his sword down to the side and glared at it for a little while to make it stop fidgeting around like it was, and then swiftly pushed his fingers into the small socket that it had on its left shoulder. It seemed to have something like this at each joint of its ape-like body. They seemed to be something like seeds trapped inside of rubies, and when Eisen inspected it, all he managed to find out was that it was an 'Experimental Seed'.
"So someone is playing around with animals around here, huh?" The old man whispered, and then just sighed, before a voice slowly spoke up. "We have found quite a lot of these, haven't we?" Kirisho asked, as mist streamed from the amulet around Eisen's neck and formed the woman's body, before Eisen just nodded his head in response.
"Yes, seems so. I mean, it seems like we should be able to grow these, but Caria isn't getting any sort of reaction from it." The old man explained, and Kirisho seemed to think about it rather strongly.
"Is there any weird mana connected to it?" She asked Eisen, who had no good answer for that, "Yes, and No." He pointed out, "It's just a large amount of Natural mana. An incredible amount of it, really. But there's something else mixed in as well, I just can't tell what it is. But since it's an 'Experimental Seed', that was to be expected." The old man pointed out with a slight sigh.
"I mean, this is a place with a surreal amount of natural mana, and since these animals are getting more and more, we're surely getting closer to the source of it. Maybe someone at the town knows anything." Eisen suggested, and then stood back up while picking his blade up, and then made his way over toward the small camp that the others were currently producing. Although it wasn't much of a camp... They just had Fafnir open the Gate and set up slight protection around it, that's all.
To be fair, that made it a rather easy-to-remove camp, so they never had to work too long to get everything back.
Either way, for now, Eisen joined the others while trying to tame his mad demonic sword.
---
Benjamin pushed his body out of the capsule and stepped out toward the door, swiftly making his way into the kitchen, where Andrew was currently standing, eating a bowl of cereal while looking at the large TV in the livingroom.
With a slight sigh, Benjamin stepped into the kitchen and got out a small pan from the cabinet, "Mornin'." Andrew said nonchalantly, although the old man had something else to say about this.
"You know that the reason I asked you to come here was so that YOU would be protected as well, right? Standing out here in the open won't be much help for that." Benjamin pointed out as he placed the pan over the stove and placed a little bit of butter into it while grabbing a bowl as well as some eggs from the fridge.
"I know, I know. But it's been like three days, if they were gonna get mad over shit, I'd have already been called because they burnt down the dojo or something..." Andrew pointed out, pushing another spoon of cereal into his mouth while Benjamin just sighed.
And while the old man started one-handedly cracking some of the eggs over the bowl, all of a sudden, Andrew and Benjamin could hear the ringing of a phone, which Andrew swiftly pulled out of his pocket, "Coincidence." He pointed out and then hurriedly answere the call without even checking who called him, "Jones here, how can I-" Andrew started, and was then swiftly interrupted by the voice of a rather eccentric woman, "Ah, Miss Pesterfield, nice to hear from you." The young man pointed out, and for a few seconds just listened to the woman's rambling before sighing deeply.
"Ma'am, we've given more than enough notice, even if it did happen all of a sudden. We called whoever we could, including you, sent out e-mails to everyone, and there's even a notice on the Dojo's front door. There won't be classes for the next while." Andrew sighed, and a few seconds later shook his head annoyedly as he looked at Benjamin.
"I'll be right back..." He said, and then held the phone back to his ear as he started walking around the livingroom to talk to this woman, while the old man just slightly smiled and started getting some simple things ready for now.
He put some eggs into the bowl and then swiftly started whisking them around to get all the yolks to break up, before pouring them into the low-heat pan and using a rubber spatula to slowly scramble the eggs and then took a short break to put some bread into the toaster, and then kept continuosly moving the scrambled eggs around in the pan.
Once they started setting a bit, he properly seasoned the eggs and properly mixed everything around, and once the scrambled eggs took on a creamy constistency and the toast was ready, simply put the bread on a plate and then slowly poured the creamy scrambled eggs onto them, and then faced a bit of a predicament, at which point Benji stepped into the kitchen tiredly.
"Huh? Gramps, what are you doing? Why are you trying to cook again? Just rest properly, geez..." Benji complained and swiftly stepped over toward the old man, and looked at the plate in front of his grandfather with surprise.
"Benji, I can make scrambled eggs without hands if I need to. As long as I can hold the spatula and pan-handle in my mouth, I'm fine. I just need a little help with the pepper mill..." The old man pointed out, and Benji just smiled wrily as he grabbed the wooden piece with a nod, and then put some extra pepper on it before handing the plate to Benjamin.
"Yeah, sorry about that. Dad's kinda making me just as crazy as he is about all this stuff..." Benji explained, but the old man just shook his head as he placed the plate down on the kitchen isle and sat down on one of the stools, "I appreciate it, really. But I'm fine, I'm in peak condition. Maybe a couple of pounds lighter, but I've put on a few healthy pounds again, so nothing to worry about." Benjamin explained, and Benji just slightly sighed.
"Well, if you say so..." The young man said, and properly stepped into the kitchen as well to get his day started, "Oh, the strong coffee's in the top. I'm sure you need it right now." Benjamin pointed out as he bit into his breakfast, and Benji immediately froze up.
"I'm not sure what you're talking about..." He said quietly as he looked away, and the old man looked at Benji surprised, "Really? I could have sworn you and Evalia were offline all of last night... Despite mentioning how you two wanted to properly get information on the Guild Building's layout..."
"O-Oh, that? Yeah, the plan changed, we didn't do that last night, but we'll be doing it tonight. Last night I just wanted to properly sleep a bit, I've been feeling a little exhausted lately." Benji pointed out, and Benjamin sighed slightly in response.
"Benji, I saw Evalia leave your room a couple minutes ago, wearing the her shirt the wrong way."