Spending My Retirement In A Game

"What are we doing today?" Caria asked curiously, and Eisen just smiled at her as he gave Gralmar the note he wrote for Sky and Bree to let them know where he was as well once they woke up, "We’re making something special today. Or at least we’re preparing to make something special." Eisen explained, and it seemed like even the Innkeeper was a bit curious as he overheard this.

"Oh? Something that even ye see as special... I sure would love to see that." Gralmar laughed, and Eisen just looked back at him before quickly replying, "Hmm, then I’ll show you once it’s done." The old man replied, and then just waved at Gralmar as he then left the Inn, quickly making his way toward Denmir’s smithy. He wanted a little bit of privacy for this, so that should be the best place for that.

Eisen stepped up to the shop’s door and started loudly knocking on it to get Denmir to open up, and the sleepy dwarf soon made his awy to the door and did just that.

"Eisen? When did ya get back? And what are ye doin’ here so early?" Denmir asked, before Eisen just lightly smiled and placed the Dragon-Mana Dagger that he made into the Dwarf’s hands as he made his way inside toward the actual smithy, and just a few moments later, Denmir ran up behind him.

"Was this forged out of mana? Is that the gift of that Dragon ye met?" The Dwarf inquired curiously, in response to which Eisen just nodded his head. "Mhm, it is. Ah, by the way, Melissa, can you send some of your bees out to let Sigurd and Fafnir know that we’re back?" The old man asked, and the young girl quickly did as asked and extended her hand forward, before around half a dozen fist-sized bees came crawling out of her sleeve and then flew off.

"Hmm, then what are ye making now?" Denmir asked, "Somethin’ else outta mana?" He added, simply incredibly curious about the process of this, and Eisen nodded his head.

"Yes, exactly. The skill is currently at Rank 0, I need to bring it to at least Rank 3 to make something out of this. Well, I don’t need to, but that’s what I want it to be at for this." Eisen pointed out and removed the cloth that he had bound around the large sphere of Silver-Dragon Mana and handed it to the Dwarf next to him as he started to prepare to use one of the smithies that seemed to have not been used over the past few days.

"Oh? What is this? Crystalized Mana, perhaps?" Denmir asked, instantly seeing through it despite it outwardly looking and feeling like silver, just as Eisen had expected of a Smith of his caliber. "Yes, a large amount of Crystalized Mana coming from Marcear, the Ancient Dragoness I went to meet. I don’t want to waste it, so I have to raise my skill level a bit." The old man explained, and then started to compress his mana until it turned into crystalized mana in front of him, and then finally reached a chunk of the size of Eisen’s fist, which he figured might be enough to make a small item. He hoped that Bree would wake up and come soon, she should be able to help him out with this immensely. Although, Denmir then made another suggestion.

"Hmm, I think I will get Morrom, he should be able to help ya with this." The Dwarf pointed out, and Eisen raised his brows a bit surprised. Of course he would be able to help! Compression was an Alchemy ability in the first place, so someone that had to have their Alchemy skill at a rather high rank should be able to help a fair amount. "That would actually be great, to be honest." Eisen replied as he assigned the mana crystal chunk to be like Steel and then threw it into the forge, while the Dwarf quickly made his way out of the shop to get this done. Denmir was actually rather excited and wanted to see Eisen work, but that seemed to only really be possible once Morrom was there as well.

So for now, Eisen would work without Denmir there, and he should be back before Eisen was done with whatever piece he was working on now.

Although that in itself was something that Eisen was wondering about as well. What could he forge out of metal-like mana to make proper use of it? He didn’t have enough to repeatedly make weapons, and he definitely didn’t want to just make random weapons anyway.

But then, the old man noticed what was in his peripheral vision, Sal who was testing out some new ways to make thread-based magic circles now that he could push thread out of his fingers, and Eisen just got a little bit of an idea, and instead of forging the mana into the shape of some item, he turned it into wire with different lengths and thicknesses, although all of them were too thick and strong to be bent while cold, since the mana was acting completely like Steel would, even if it felt simply fake.

Luckily, Eisen’s hand could handle this level of heat very easily, so the old man could take the hot mana-steel wires and bend them into shape, twisting and turning them around each other properly, creating a Mana-Steel Magic Circle, although in the end it was rather built like an enchantment since it had a specific image connected and imbedded in it, and that image was rather simple. It was supposed to help compress mana more easily.

After Eisen bent the wires around each other and created the right shape, he held it back into the flames, at which point Denmir and Morrom arrived at the Smithy again, and the Dwarf-Elf Halfling looked at Eisen surprised.

"You got back last night and you’re already working like this?" He laughed, and then took a look at what Eisen was actually forging, and then raised his brows surprised, "Hmm, Denmir said you could forge mana... you turned crystalized mana into a magic circle?" The Halfling asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, trying not to lose too much focus on his work as he was explaining.

"Mhm, I’m hoping that it makes it reusable." The old man explained, but Morrom slightly frowned and sighed, as if he wanted to say something, but for now just let Eisen continue.

After the mana-steel magic circle heated up to the temperature that Eisen wanted it to again, he took it back out of the forge and then hammered the different parts of it where the different wires had been connected to each other to make them practically inseperable. And like that, the old man was soon finished and just let the Magic Circle cool for a while before looking it over again and would then see it as finished.

While that was happening, the old man just turned around and properly greeted Morrom, before hearing what he had to say. And to Eisen’s surprise, Morrom didn’t say anything at all and instead just held his palm forward and pushed out some mana that soon crystalized and turned into a magic circle. Once it was done, instead of activating it, Morrom extended his hand and grabbed the rim of it, and then started to wave the magic circle around.

"This is basically what you just wanted to do, right?" Morrom asked, and then just slowly activated the magic circle, although all it did was create a light gust of wind before the whole crystalized mana-circle disappeared for it, "Even if the magic circle is made with crystalized mana, you can’t use it more than once. You can only do that with special materials, but not with crystalized mana itself." He explained with a slight sigh, but Eisen raised his brows suspiciously.

"Was that an item just now?" Eisen asked, and Morrom looked at him confused, "No? I made it myself just with my Mana Manipulation and Alchemical Compression?" He replied, but the old man shook his head in response, saying that wasn’t what he meant.

"No, was that actual Magic Circle seen as a completed item, or was it just seen as a regular magic circle?" Eisen asked, making the Dwarf-Elf halfling look at Eisen surprised, "It was a regular magic circle, so a sort of spell. Meaning, it can’t be turned into an item." He pointed out, but with a chuckle, Eisen shook his head and grabbed the Dragon-Mana Dagger that he showed to Denmir before and handed it to Morrom.

"That’s exactly where you’re wrong. When I visited Marcear, the Ancient Silver Dragoness, I just passed her trial and got the skill ’Magic Craftsmanship’. Meaning, I can turn literal mana into items. I can ’assign’ a material to the mana that it will act as. The whole Dagger you’re holding was made using crystalized mana, and only crystalized mana. Technically, that Dagger is a spell, apparently." Eisen explained, and Morrom looked down at the dagger and ran his hands over it, tried to bend it, and even attempted to cut his finger with it, but at least Eisen could stop him from doing the last of those things.

And when Eisen took the Dagger away from Morrom again, the Half-Elf looked at the old man excitedly, "That’s... that’s just amazing! Having spells like this is just insane!" Morrom exclaimed, "A Spell in the form of an item... How amazing..." He muttered quietly, and then stared at the Magic Circle as it was currently cooling, and slowly took it into his hands. Morrom was also a half-dwarf, so his hands had the same resistance to heat as Eisen’s own, but the old man still didn’t like that he was touching an unfinished piece of his.

"Put that down again, will you?" Eisen asked with a slight frown, and Morrom just laughed embarrassedly, "Sorry about that..." Morrom apologized, and put the hot magic circle back to where it was cooling before, while Eisen just slightly sighed.