Eisen stared at Denmir in confusion. How could he be one of those five? And it seemed like not only Eisen was thinking that, since also Bree was completely surprised at this idea.
"O-One of the five?! B-But, h-how could he...? How would someone even steal the experience of someone with stats as high as those of one of the five?" She muttered out, thinking back onto the time she kept watching Eisen's immense skill. The more she thought about it, the more this idea made sense.
Stealing someone's experience was such an incredibly hard process that many thought of it to be some kind of urban legend that parents used to scare their child into studying diligently and not taking things for granted. But obviously, it was a real thing, seeing how Eisen did lose his experience. So Eisen needed to be a great person to be worth getting his experience stolen. There was just one more question that needed to be asked.
"And what would you do with that much experience?" Bree asked, still trying to grasp the possibilty of Eisen really being such a legendary person.
Eisen sighed loudly and scratched his beard. "Denmir, do you really think so?"
"Aye, I do. It makes sense, right? Usually, ye wouldn't be able to do anythin' but blabber like a baby without any experience, but ye're not only talking like ye've got milennia worth of life experience, ye're also craftin' like it!" The dwarf explained, and Eisen nodded lightly. It was quite obvious that the developers meant for him and the other originals to be 'the five that peaked', so there was no reason to pretend as if it wasn't the case.
"I see, and let's say that's really true, I do wonder the same thing as Bree. What would you do with that much experience?" Eisen asked Denmir, who crossed his arms and thought for a bit, before his eyes shot open.
"Don't tell me… So that's what that was… There are rumors goin' around lately. All over the world, there are people appearin' out of nowhere. Literally, out of nowhere. Just in the middle of a smaller town, light congeals up and a person appears! They seem to know much, much more than they let on. They're supposed ta be quite harmless, most of 'em are trying to get into commerce for some reason'. These people suddenly started appearin' yesterday mornin'."
From the description of these events, Eisen knew that Denmir was talking about the appearance of other players. The timing was right, and since they were employee's of the largest investors, it made sense for them to work toward being merchants.
"And in what way do you think my experience being stolen connects to these people?" Eisen asked, and Denmir stated his theory.
"I think that someone, or something, is usin' yer experience to create new people. I know it might sound crazy, but it's the only explanation I can come up with."
"That's possible?" Eisen asked in surprise, in response to which the dwarf in front of him simply shrugged.
"Maybe. How I said, it's just a theory. Nobody really knows what experience is and what it can do. Of course there is the tangible actual experience ya gain by simply livin' and doin' things, but the experience that makes us level up is different. All we know is that it is deeply embedded in our soul and body, letting us grow in strength or speed just by levelin' up. Since it can do that and basically change what our body is like nearly instantly, why couldn't it create new people?"
Eisen nodded as he listened to Denmir, slowly building up the background story from a player's perspective.
Seeing that Eisen was simply scratching his beard and listening with his eyes closed, Denmir couldn't help but sigh loudly with a soft laugh. "I'm over 'ere tellin' ya that you're a literal legend and are close to being a god walking amongst people, and ye're just takin' this, well, like this?"
Eisen began to chuckle lowly before shrugging. "Basically, yes. I mean, how would you react if someone told you who you are supposed to be? And we don't have any definite proof for this anyway, so it would be silly if I got excited."
"That's true, haha." Denmir laughed and nodded while his heart was beating like he never felt before.
Eisen may be saying that there is no 'definite proof', but to Denmir, there was no other possibility. In his mind, it was absolute definite that Eisen was one of the five.
And such a thought, that the person that Denmir has looked up to for his whole life, the one that founded this town he grew up in and basically led the dwarven race toward what it is today, was now directly in front of him and even learned the blacksmithing skill from him, made Denmir feel no doubt about it.
But no matter how much he wanted to, Denmir couldn't just freak out about it now like Bree. After all, he was a grown man. And he didn't want to embarrass himself in front of his hero, obviously.
But now it was quite late, and everyone was starting to feel tired, even Bree who didn't usually need much sleep was rubbing her eyes and yawning loudly.
And as such, everyone decided to make their way back to their respective sleeping places now. They could continue this talk some other time if they wanted to, although there wasn't too much more to talk about with the extent of the knowledge that they had.
So, Eisen led his two automata back to the Inn with Caria on his shoulder and Bree following closely behind. The horse automaton's body was actually so large that it was hard for it to fit through the doors of the inn, but in the end it managed to do so without breaking anything.
---
"Ah, good morning, Eisen!" Jyuuk exclaimed with a smile on his face, seeing that he could now talk to the old man for the first time in a few days now. It seemed like the Monkey Beastperson didn't have work that day, so he could be online as much as he wanted to.
He especially wanted to talk about that new creature, or rather structure, inside of their room! That huge golden horse standing in the corner! Since it seemed to act in a similar fashion to the wolf automaton that Eisen made, Jyuuk figured that this was also an automaton.
Eisen stood up from his bed and looked around the room, noticing that he and Jyuuk were alone, with Bree apparently having left already. "Good morning Jyuuk. This is actually a good chance. I need to tell you something."
With that, Eisen began to tell Jyuuk about all of the things that Denmir mentioned to him, about the sudden appearance of people all over the world, as well as the legends of the 'five that peaked'. Of course he was also interested in the backstory to describe the appearance of players in the world, but Jyuuk was thinking more about the part about him saying 'he could raise armies from the dead'. There was only one thing that he could think of with that.
"Erm, Eisen, do you maybe have any bones I could have?" He asked, and Eisen nodded with a frown.
"Hm? Yeah, I do. I still have the bones I used as a reference when building Aulu. Why do you ask?"
"I wanted to try something with them. Do you know about necromancy?" Jyuuk asked while Eisen was grabbing the wolf-bones out of the backpack that Bree left in their room. The old man stopped for a second to think, but then shook his head.
"I'm not sure I do. But necro means 'dead', right? So I'm guessing it's death-magic?"
"Exactly! It's what you just mentioned, the one that could control life and death so greatly has to be me, right? Then necromancy should definitely be a thing here as well!" Jyuuk said excitedly while placing the bones into a small pile on the ground, trying to think about what to do next.
Interested in what would happen now, Eisen squatted down next to him and watched as Jyuuk seemed to pour his mana out of his hands and into the bones.
For a while, nothing happened, but then the bones started shaking a little bit and shifted around. Jyuuk seemed to be concentrating strongly on what he was doing, so Eisen made an effort not to do anything that could disturb him, simply looking at the scene quietly.
After a few minutes, a completed wolf skeleton was standing in front of Eisen and Jyuuk, although Jyuuk currently seemed to have to constantly supply it with some mana to have it keep up its shape. But soon enough, Jyuuk's concentration slipped and the bones fell back onto the ground nearly immediately.
And the reason why his concentration slipped was quite simple, he got the notification that he learned the necromancy skill and was quite excited about it.
But Eisen couldn't help but ask. "And what can you do with that now? It won't be too useful in combat if you have to constantly supply it with mana, right? I could make something like a mana crystal harness that can supply it with some if you want."
Jyuuk looked at the bones for a few seconds, before shaking his head lightly. "No, thank you. I know that I won't be able to do anything with it now, but most skills are basically useless at rank 0, right? If I rank them up enough, I should be able to use them quite well. Besides that, these animated skeletons seem to be like… erm… what's the word… I just had it, err… Bunraku, you know?" Jyuuk asked somewhat embarrassed, scratching the back of his head lightly. He was quite impressive, though! Eisen only noticed that Jyuuk somewhat messed up in english two times! First, when he had trouble pronouncing 'Monkey' correctly during his self-introduction, and just now. Although forgetting a word in a foreign language can hardly be seen as 'messing up'.
Eisen chuckled and nodded. "I think I know what you mean. Puppets, right?"
Jyuuk's eyes lit up and he smiled, nodding happily. "Yes, that's the word! Puppets! Right! I should have known that though… Anyway, erm, they are like puppets. If you made something that supplied them with mana, I would have the body, but would still miss the strings to control it."
"Ah, I see. That makes sense, yeah. Well, tell me if you want me to make something for you, anyway. I'll be spending a while making a carriage now, so look for me at the woodworker's if you need me. That reminds me, what have you been doing the past few days?" Eisen asked Jyuuk, who happily placed his arms onto his hips. At moments like these, you could notice that the monkey beastperson has lost some of his initial awkwardness around Eisen, which honestly made him qutie happy to see.
Jyuuk smiled and told Eisen, "There's a dungeon around here! I spent the past few days trying to clear that! The first few levels aren't hard, but soon enough the monsters caught up with my level, and I managed to come close to level 100! I think I'll be there soon enough!"
"Wow, quite impressive! I wonder if there will be something interesting once you reach that level. Make sure to tell me if there is!" Eisen laughed and lightly pat Jyuuks back before telling his Automata to stand up, as well as waking Caria up who was sleeping on the large back of the Horse Automaton.
It was now time to start building that carriage.
