The group slightly slowed down as they continued through the hallway, following the sound of smithing that they could hear echo through this castle's basement.
It didn't take long until they reached the place that they assumed to be the boss room, standing in front of a small, wooden door placed into the brick wall at the end of the hallway.
Eisen slowly pulled on the handle and opened the door up, before seeing the dark workshop right behind it. It was a rather cluttered space, but incredibly large, far, far larger than possible. For one, the ceiling was stretching out for more than a hundred meters, which should be visible aboveground.
The old man slowly stepped inside into the Boss-room followed by the other four originals. Since the group had already been reduced to the exact size that should enter the boss room, which was the five Originals together with Kiron, as he was amongst the strongest outside of the originals directly.
Then there were of course Jyuuk's and Eisen's tamed monsters, Jyuuk's undead, and Xenia's spirits. Everyone was inside of the workshop now, and Eisen just looked around to try and find the one that was currently working in here, before seeing some light on the other side of this large, mostly darkened room. The group walked past the numerous pieces of weaponry, armor, and simple tools that were scattered around this place, and then saw a figure standing in front of the smithy.
It stood there, with a relatively small frame for the most part. Its torso seemed rather thin and frail, same with its legs, buts its hands were simply enormous. Unnaturally so. Each of its arms were comparable to its torso in size, and to top it off, it had six of them.
It was holding a large item in some of those hands and used the other hands to forge it into shape. But a few moments later, it clicked its tongue annoyedly and slowly turned around, "Tsk... Another failure..." It spoke. The voice of the being in front of the group was clearly unnatural and inhuman. It was like it was producing its voice by scratching pieces of metal against each other. Besides that, it seemed to have a rather normal humanoid form.
It had an average face of a man at the end of his thirties and a short beard that seemed as if it simply hadn't shaved in roughly two or three weeks. And all in all, this person's body was just made completely of metal from top to bottom.
"You're the owner of this place?" Eisen asked, and the being in front of them simply stared back with a blank expression, "Are you here to take me down?" It asked, but Eisen slowly shook his head.
"Not if we can avoid it. You don't seem too aggressive... Would you be alright with taking a break and talking for a bit?" The old man inquired, and the figure slowly turned back toward the forge for a moment, "I don't think I can do that. Either way, we'll have to finish this in some way, or else I'm going to die. And I can't die yet."
"I see." The old man replied, "And what do you need to do before you can die?" Eisen asked. And Brody slowly looked at him with a wry smile, "Hey, do you think this is the right time for small-talk?"
"Of course not. I just think it's important to know."
After a bit of thought, the figure placed the old, dented, and dirty hammers and the 'failed' item in its hands to the side.
"I... don't remember what I need to do. I just know that I need to create things for it. But lately, I just keep failing." It explained, and Eisen slowly extended his hand forward toward it, "Can I take a look? I'm a craftsman myself, you see?"
"Hm... If you can help me figure it out, then killing you can wait for a few moments." The thing replied in a slow, emotionless tone of voice. It held the item it was holding forward. It was a pretty simple broadsword. As far as Eisen could tell, it was an ego-item, though. The old man ran his fingers over the still-hot metal and immediately felt what was wrong with it.
"You used a crystal alloy for this, right? That's what's making it this rigid?" Eisen asked, and the boss slowly nodded its head, "Yes." It replied clearly.
Eisen just thought about it for a moment and then waved his hand to the side. He opened his item storage. The old man quickly stepped into the room that appeared right in front of him and reached his hand into the storage for one of the metallic materials.
It was a simple piece of steel that was infused with some mana, right before it would turn into a magic metal. Eisen stepped out of the item storage and made it disappear, before pulling out his Multitool, "Can I use this for a moment?" Eisen asked, pointing at the forge, and the boss simply nodded. And so, Eisen turned around toward the others.
"You can just take a bit of a break, this won't take too long I hope."
"Are you sure you aren't being a little bit too casual about this?" Brody complained, and Eisen just laughed lightly, "Haha, I can see what you mean. Don't worry, everything's fine. I have the situation perfectly under control." Eisen announced. He then looked back at the rigid sword in his hand and held it into the flames of the forge. The old man waited for it to properly heat up and then pulled it back out.
With a deep breath, Eisen ran his hand over the glowing hot surface of the blade. First things first, he used his extraction skill to pull out some parts of the alloy used for this blade that were making it rigid. He didn't get rid of everything, but rather just a little of it in preparation for fixing the balance. And while Eisen was doing this, he was heating up the chunk of steel that he just grabbed out of his item storage.
Usually, he would have had to melt this whole thing down and increase the ratio of all other ingredients for this blade beside the one that was making it too rigid, as it would probably be rather hard to normally extract it just like that. But now, he was using the specific skill instead, which would really save him a lot of time. Eisen had been a bit hesitant to use these sorts of skills for the actual crafting process until now, for whatever reason, and just made use of them for the material preparation or for basic experiments. But after he remembered the events leading up to the creation of that special ego item now standing next to him, the old man had somehow gotten a new perspective on crafting. It wasn't a large shift, but enough to change his opinion on how he should use his skills.
After he removed some of the parts of the alloy, Eisen grabbed the hot metal he placed into the forge. He placed it right onto the hot blade and then started to hammer it onto it. Using his 'Item Fusion' skill, he then added the steel into the blade, which was strengthened by the fact that Eisen was using his hammer and was using it as an 'activator' for the skill.
Eisen tried to evenly fuse the steel into the blade, and once he was done, simply fixed it up a little more. There were a few parts that simply weren't well-forged, so the old man changed that. Soon, the blade was as good as done, so he simply created a grindstone with his element and quickly sharpened the blade a bit, changing the grain of the grinder as he was going to save a bit more time and have smooth transitions between the grains.
After it was done, Eisen simply polished the blade up a bit. This blade seemed to have been designed in a way that the handle would be metal as well. Basically, it was purely metal, and nothing else. That seemed to be something that really seemed to be common amongst all of these 'newer' items in this place.
"Here you go, is this better?" Eisen asked, handing the sword over toward the figure next to him. The original creator of this piece looked it over for a moment and then nodded his head.
"It is a masterpiece. Better than anything I have ever made." It said in its regular, emotionless tone, and Eisen slowly looked around the room, "Yes, I can see that. But don't worry, with a little bit of practice, you'll be fine. You're just a beginner, after all."
"Eh?" Evalia asked all of a sudden, "What do you mean, a little practice? Isn't that thing the ego-item you made?"
"Of course not." The old man said with a slight sigh, and extended his hand toward one of the cracked, old hammers that the being right next to him had been holding and using before, "This is the ego-item I made." Eisen explained.
Kiron took a step closer to get a good view of it, and then looked up at Eisen again, "Grandfather, are you sure that this is something you made..? It seems rather..."
"Shabby? Yeah, it's not its true form. Come on, bud. Show yourself." Eisen said, and just a few moments later, the surface of the hammer Eisen was holding, the dirty one, not the multitool, started to crack and crumbled away soon thereafter. Instead of the simple 'block hammer', it changed its shape to sit better in Eisen's hand and now had a slightly silvery-blue-ish tone to instead of the dirty, dark gray.
And a few moments later, even that changed. Eisen let go of the hammer, and the metal making up the hammer's head simply started to increase in size and mass. Its form changed completely as well, the handle splitting into two and becoming legs for the body that was forming.
But overall, the materials used for the tool were also changing into other materials. They simply became flesh-like, although the figure's skin still had that slightly slivery-blue-ish tone.
The figure that was now standing in front of Eisen was about the same height as him without him changing his size in the slightest, and looked exactly like the metallic, six-armed figure behind it, just with normal proportions. It had two well-shaped arms, a muscular, lean upper body, and thick log-like, defined legs.
"Hm, I should have known you'd recognize me, old man." It said with a rude voice and clear glare, and Eisen simply started moving his fingers through his own beard with a laugh, "Of course I would. I recognize all my children at a glance, no matter what form they take."