BXBX NOVEL Chapter 328 - Metal-Faced
"Mhm, basically. But get back to work now." The old man told them, and then began to take a look at the items that they made. They were just bags, so there wasn’t anything too special about them, and Eisen swiftly moved on to the last part of the Leatherworking lessons. A lot of things in it were similar to tailoring, and although there were a few techniques that you could only apply to Leatherworking that they didn’t know yet, for the most part the four of them were already aware of how to handle Leather as a material.
And even if that didn’t reach the depth that Eisen wanted that to have for them, there wasn’t a lot he could do about that considering the small amount of time that actually went into these lessons compared to what it should be.
For now he wanted to get them to know the basics about everything that they might need, which was partially so that Stahl would be able to finish up Eisen’s lessons and the old man could start teaching his apprentices in more detail. Either way, after giving them a few more explanations, Eisen gave them their next task and then moved on to working on the Golem’s head.
To fit with the theme of everything else, it was mainly just supposed to look like a helmet, but something of a mixture between a regular head and a helmet. It looked a bit weird, but also pretty cool as far as Eisen was concerned. For one, the head was supposed to be able to switch between two ’Modes’ of sort.
They weren’t really modes, but when the Golems weren’t in combat, a few panels could be pulled to the sides of their faces to reveal a head that was more in the direction of being humanoid, although it still had helmet parts to it. And then, while in Combat, those panels could be pulled forward to turn the head into a full-on helmet.
First, Eisen started to work on the base for the head, which was the actual head-part. In any other situation, Eisen would have made a mold for something with a high amount of details like this, but considering a certain special ability that Eisen had, that really wasn’t necessary.
To start it off with, Eisen created a chunk of metal in the rough shape of a head, and then grabbed the still-hot piece and sat it down on the magic-table in front of him while infusing his hands with his element, specifically to give off a high amount of heat as much as possible.
It drained a little bit off his strength to do so, but even then, considering that the Steel was so hot, Eisen was able to push into it with his hands, because they were immune to high heat. And just like that, Eisen was able to start molding the steel with his hands, and slowly turned it into a quite simple face. Of course, the jaw was a seperate piece to the rest of the head, but other than that, it ended up looking pretty nice in the old man’s opinion.
"Well, I did follow Evalia’s sketch... so obviously it looks good." Eisen chuckled to himself as he looked at the metal face he was holding. It seemed to have a naturally stern expression, and the facial shape seemed to be a little square and ’Rough’ in some ways. And it wasn’t that the face wasn’t handsome, but it was the kind of face that would make it easy for someone to scare little children.
And after creating the jaw in a similar manner, Eisen let both parts cool down properly before working on some other smaller parts, which he had Jyuuk help him with. He knew roughly the size and shape of teeth, but he wasn’t really that knowledgeable about it, and because Eisen wanted the face to be at least somewhat realistic, Jyuuk advised him on the exact shapes of the specific teeth, even helping the old man mold them a little with the help of Eisen’s ’Transmutation’ enchanted tools.
"Hmm, did you think about enchanting these? Maybe it would be possible for the golems to use it in combat somehow? Like, in a tough situation just bite the heck out of their opponent?" The Beastperson suggested, and Eisen chuckled before nodding his head.
"Actually, yeah, I’m planning on enchanting the metal parts later. Just not yet until the whole body is done. I can take it apart pretty easily anyway. For example, I was thinking about placing three-dimensional enchantments into the hands of the Supporter to make it possible for it to cast magic with its hands. Maybe give it a ’Healing Touch’ or something. But for the others, I was mainly planning on placing a few properly carved enchantments onto the skin." Eisen explained, and Jyuuk nodded his head with a smile.
"Ah, got it! Well, do you need my help with anything else?" Jyuuk asked, and Eisen replied using a grin. "Yes, actually. I want you to help me with the eyes, ears and nose, and taste as well, actually. I worked on something like that for Aulu and Cabarum before already, but I think I can do a lot better with your help." The old man pointed out, before the Beastperson scratched the back of his neck with a grin. "Haha, I see. Well, then I guess helping out a little can’t hurt, huh?" He replied with a smirk, and Eisen nodded his head before taking out a few different materials, some of which he really didn’t have much anymore.
"Alright, I have about 4 Crystal Eyes left. Size wise, they should be large enough to make two or three out of each one, though. I would like to work on these first. Then we have some more of the crystal pieces that you collected for Fafnir’s body before. What should we do to make these work properly for a Golem?" Eisen asked curiously, before Jyuuk scratched the back of his neck and just thought about it for a while, and then grabbed one of the crystal eyes. "Well, for one, we can of course change the structure of the eye around, and add a few different materials into this. If you get the materials ready and prepare the eyes properly, I can do most of that for you." Jyuuk pointed out, and then looked at the other small crystal pieces laying on the table before starting to think about what they could do with these beside just placing them into the right areas of the Golems’ heads.
"Well... Other than enchanting them, I’m not 100% sure we can do all that much with the others, sorry." Jyuuk said with a wry smile, and Eisen nodded his head with a sigh. "Alright, I get it. Then I’ll just get started on that in a bit. I’ll call you when I have everything for the eyes ready, yeah?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk nodded his head and went on his way himself.
"Alright... Now... I guess I should rather work on the different metal-parts first, huh?" Eisen said with a sigh, before turning around and looking at the pile of steel that was meant for the creation of the two other Golems. And so, Eisen swiftly grabbed the first chunk of steel and threw it into his forge.
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"Rouge, pay attention. Your mana is wavering." Eisen pointed out as he went and made his rounds to check on his students a little bit, noticing that Rouge, who was currently working on one of the last tasks for the Enchanting lessons, had a slightly unsteady flow of mana going at the moment. It was important to have a steady amount of mana inside of the needle you were enchanting with, otherwise the enchantment would heavily lose out on quality. But it seemed like Rouge quickly nodded his head and corrected this small mistake. And with a smile on his face, Eisen continued walking, especially keeping an eye, both of which were in their ’Truth-Seeing’ mode, on the flow of mana around Koro. After all, enchanting was the reason for him not having been a Magicraftsman-Apprentice in the first place.
But it seemed like Eisen didn’t really need to worry all that much, because everything seemed to be going fine, and then chuckled while grabbing one of his enchanting needles and getting to work on the outer-enchantment on the last metal joint that Eisen had to make for the Golems, before sighing lightly.
"Alright, finally..." The old man muttered to himself and placed the joint inbetween the left upper arm and left lower arm of the Supporter Golem, before swiftly activating all of the joints at the same time and grabbing the mana-string spinnerets to get to sewing everything together.
Once more, it actually took rather long to do so, considering the sheer amount of mana-string that he needed to use, so his students had to wait a little bit until the old man was finished and was able to take a proper look at what they made. But after a little while, Eisen managed to finish up and then went to take a look at the different enchantments that his students made, although there wasn’t anything majorly impressive in them. It seemed as if they all somewhat just wanted to move on to the thing that they had most interest in right now after seeing Eisen fiddle with the metal-balls all day.
"I guess I’ve got no choice... Did all of you get enough practice with Transmutation in?" Eisen asked them, and the four of them immediately nodded their heads without a moment of hesitation in their expressions.
"Good. Then, here are the basics..." The old man said with a light smile while handing out some mana-crystal spheres to everyone, and then began to explain what exactly they needed to do to make a three-dimensional enchantment, and then crossed his arms with a stern expression.
"And as a warning to all of you, three dimensional enchantments may have the exposition to be more effective than regular enchantments, but because of that, the backlash when something goes wrong with one of them is even greater as well, and it’s easier to mess up something. So I advise all of you to make sure you can properly concentrate on everything while working on them." Eisen explained, and Koro seemed to be rather annoyed at that.
"But you were literally making them while teaching us! As if it was just a casual thing... so why do we need to pay that much attention?" He asked, and with a light sigh, Eisen took a step closer toward Koro and crossed his arms.
"Maybe because I have a liiiitttle bit more experience at doing this kind of stuff than you do? Just a teeny tiny bit." The old man pointed out, and Koro began to frown in response again, but just kept quiet while grinding his teeth, so Eisen turned around and stepped away toward his Golems again, and then turned around toward Koro.
"We’re having a talk later tonight. Now, all of you, make a simple three-dimensional enchantment in the way that I told you to. Just try it, if something goes wrong, I’ll come and help out." Eisen told them and then turned back toward his golems with a light sigh.
He really hoped to be able to have a proper talk with Koro to figure out how to get him to be less angry and annoyed all the time. Because the way things were going right now didn’t seem good in the slightest.