"Am I really sure that I have everything that I need?" Eisen looked at all his items inside of his item storage, ranging from potions, provisions, tools, materials, weapons, and literally anything that he could possibly need for his trip to heaven and hell. He would need to fight the Guards in front of the respective gates in combat, and since he was only able to pass through alone, there were a lot of things that he really had to be prepared for when making his way there.
It was a bit annoying, but it had to be done. Eisen had to go to heaven, get official approval from the gods of heaven, and then go to hell, to also get official approval from the gods of the underworld. And then, he would finally become a True Demon of Yin and Yang. Otherwise, he would literally be unable to achieve that goal ever, something that Eisen couldn't let happen.
But other than that, there was something else that Eisen was kind of nervous about. Before actually heading to heaven and hell, he wanted to do something else as well in order to prepare some extra materials for when he was actually there, in order to create items that were made in heaven or hell respectively. It wasn't something that he was particularly excited about, he was mostly just... scared.
After all, there might be a reason for him to be scared. He didn't know to what extent certain things happening to him here carried over to the other aside, and somehow, Eisen had that thought stuck in the back of his mind that all the curses placed on his arm last time were the reason for why Eisen even ended up getting such tumorous growth inside of his whole arm. He didn't have anything else like that anywhere in his body, and before that happened he still went on regular checkups simply because he was old and he had to do so in order to make sure that he really got all of the right medication that he needed. But nothing even close to such growths were ever found.
So what if the curses really were the reason for why Eisen had those growths in his body? If that was the case, then Eisen simply couldn't just go forward with his plan of turning himself into a 'Being of Yin' without thinking of what might happen to him if he did. Especially lately, Eisen became much, much more connected to this world even while he was in his original world. He just couldn't let this happen until he was sure that he was going to be alright even if he did end up trying.
As such, at least for now... Eisen gave up on the idea of doing this. But even then, this was probably not the last time that he would enter heaven. After all, if one could only go there once, then he would not be able to go there even know. Surely something like that wouldn't be dictated by one's experience but some kind of gatekeeping entity. The old Eisen wouldn't have given the current Eisen a task that would be impossible for the current Eisen to complete, which it would be considering that the former Eisen did go to both heaven and hell before, as far as he was currently aware.
Either way, there may also be cool materials to work with in these two very different realms just like that. Maybe some special metals, crystals, or general growth. Monsters or creatures that simply couldn't be found anywhere else that Eisen could kill and gather materials from.
And who knew, but it was possible that even if Eisen just made a normal item using simple materials, it could be imbued with special properties. A sword made with simple steel could suddenly have some kind of holy aspect to it after being made in heaven, or an armor made using simple cow's leather made in a fiery part of hell could have resistance against flames. Eisen really didn't know what either of those two realms would really do to his craftsmanship, but he was more than just curious to find out.
The group had already made their way back to the central Island and to Prototype after setting up everything they needed to in regards to having a lot of the warships turned into passenger ships. For now, they were really just trying to prepare for the onslaught of players or people of this world coming over here to protoype while exploring the islands however much they may ever want to!
Of course, this required Eisen to do quite a lot as well, being the King of the country that all these people wanted to visit. He had to make sure that Prototype was prepared, that all the other towns were properly informed and prepared to hold a lot of visitors at once, he had to make sure that there was enough foor circulating around so that there wouldn't be random, sudden cases of starvation across all of <Asgard>.
And then, there was an issue that Eisen didn't even think about all that much yet. The fact that Monsters and people lived together here in town. This was definitely something that had to be explained to every single individual travelling to the islands while they were on the ship. Hopefully it would soon become a thing that people simply knew because it was common knowledge, that not all monsters on the island were bad.
But then again, there were other issues related to that. Some of the monsters living on the islands did travel a lot themselves, but there were also 'wild' monsters that were free to be hunted. It might be hard for some to differentiate between those two types of monsters.
In the end, the solution that Eisen came up with was to make it mandatory for any citizen, even people, to wear a special bracelet when they left town. Not only was it easily noticeable in the first place, but it also detected if the wearer was appraised and showed that they were indeed a citizen.
And to top it off, so that people knew that they couldn't get away with simple randomly killing, the bracelets would save the information of whoever did end up killing the wielder and immediately send it to the nearest town, who would dispatch people to literally arrest the killer.
The soul of whoever or whatever was killed would be stored in a small gemstone placed on the bracelet, so that they could potentially be transferred into something like an ego-golem, or possibly something like a first-generation golem that didn't need to connect to a core.
For now, that seemed like a proper solution for the most blatant issues that came up, and Eisen trusted the others to be able to solve any other issues that came up during the time that Eisen was gone and couldn't really make any major executive decisions in the same way as now.
And then, the old man prepared to really leave. He once more made sure that he had everything that he needed for his trips to these two special realms, and then made his way to the part of the island that was closest toward the two gates.
"Can we really not come with you?" Caria asked with a sad frown, holding her hands behind her back and looking down at the ground while pouting, and Eisen squatted down in front of her with a soft smile.
"I'm afraid so. I don't know if you'll be able to pass through the gate with me, and I don't want to leave you alone in a place like that. We can't know if there's going to be dangerous things there or not, and I wouldn't want you to have to fight the whole time I'm gone. It's just too dangerous." The old man said this quite blatantly, and without hesitation proceeded to give the three of them a hug.
When he pulled back after noticing that they seemed to have understood, he slowly pulled his amulet off his neck, because he didn't want anything to happen to Kirisho.
It was a different thing with his Ego-Sword and Ego-Multitool, because both of them, recently since Eisen reached 400 soul strength the same was the case with the multitool as well, were literally linked with Eisen's soul. It was a bit weird to think that the multitool that could turn into a humanoid form was now stored literally inside of Eisen's soul. Literally storing a soul in his soul was weird enough already, but this was at another level of 'weirdness'.
Kirisho came out of the necklace and looked at Eisen with a light smile on her face, "Just be careful, and come back as soon as you can, you hear?"
"Of course I will, don't worry." The old man said without a moment's hesitation. Of course, despite the fact that Eisen wouldn't even be gone for that long, the old man quickly said goodbye to everyone. He made sure that everyone could say what they needed to say to him, and then turned around. He increased his size and activated his Draconic Demon King transformation before kicking off the ground and flapping his wings and proceeded to fly toward the gates.
And just like he was told, the two gates soon appeared, albeit in a weird way. It was as if they just appeared when he got close enough, although he was already able to see things in the distance after them. As if they were invisible until he got close enough. And really, the gates were rather... straightforward.
They were both huge, circular gates, either floating in the sky connected to parts of floating rock, or floating on the water with a deep, dark abyss in the ocean underneath it. But both of them were closed with thick metal doors that didn't seem like they could be opened that easily.
The gate in the water was pitch-black, the one floating in the sky was pure white, just like Eisen somewhat expected them to be.
Although, the Guards seemed the opposite. Both of them were just giant men in full armor-sets, being roughly 15 meters in height.
But the Guard standing on top of the gate to hell was pure white with two angelic wings on its back, and teh one standing underneath the gate of heaven was pitch black with two demonic, bat-like wings on its back.
And 'standing underneath' quite literally meant that it was standing upside down on the gate to heaven, as if its feet were sticking to the metal.
Just like that, Eisen was looking at these two beings, and had to make a choice about who he would fight first.