BXBX NOVEL Chapter 386 - Town Tortoise
But all of this was more than just mana-intensive, so the old man constantly had some mana-potions on the ready while also hoping for Bree to be able to help him out. Especially because he would also try and gain proficiency in his Mana Copy skill at the same time by enveloping the whole area around him in his mana and saving whatever he could find in his skill.
It was all a pretty weird feeling, but because of Eisen’s current level, he was at the very least able to hold out for a little while when having all of these active. Non-combat magic often drained a lot less mana than combat magic, after all. But still, the scene was pretty weird to everyone who soon saw the giant old man casually step out of the building in that manner, with those three doubles behind him.
And to top it off, Xenia’s ears started flinching slightly the moment he approached her and enveloped her with his mana as well. "What the actual hell are you doing?" The High-Elf asked, considering that she was able to sense mana to an extent due to her race, and Eisen just chuckled at her with a smile on his face.
"Just working on my Level-Up Quest, that’s all." Eisen explained relatively quickly, and Xenia just looked at him with a wry smile before sighing out somewhat.
"Right, of course you are... I mean, that’s pretty clever... You’re practicing what, three skills right now? Mana Double, your element, and mana manipulation?" Xenia asked curiously, and Eisen quickly shook his head with a smile.
"Well, four actually. The mana around me isn’t directly part of mana manipulation practice, it’s for mana-copy." Eisen explained to her, and immediately, Xenia took a step back out of the range of the mana, and Eisen looked at her with a frown.
"Oh come on, I nearly finished copying your heart!" The old man complained jokingly, before the other Originals standing next to them also looked at Eisen weirdly.
"You’re just copying our innards, and not our body itself?" Evalia asked with a frown, before Eisen raised his eyebrows. "What, of course I am." He replied, before noticing how incriminating that sounded, before trying to reassure them a bit. "Oh, don’t worry, I’m not copying those areas in detail. I was speaking more of your general physical structure, as in your arms, hands, legs, head, those areas. Of course I’m staying away from those places." Eisen chuckled as he moved his fingers through his beard, while the other Originals slightly calmed down again.
"Let’s just kinda move on from that, eh? So, what did you do in your deep thingy the past day?" Brody asked as he crossed his arms curiously, and Eisen smiled back at him relatively happily.
"Ah, I made a few prototypes. For one, a blade and a multitool made out of respectively my Yin and Yang Metals, then some size-changing clothes so that I don’t have to carry outfits around with me all the time, and then a few Mass-Production Machineries." Eisen explained relatively calmly, although that sounded just insane to do within 24 hours.
"Wait, you managed to do all of that in a day?" Jyuuk asked because of exactly that, and Eisen nodded his head. "Oh, yes, I did. Within my Deep Visualization, things like weight don’t really matter all that much, and I can basically move the different parts in the right position telepathically if I wanted to. It usually would have taken a bit longer to try and figure all of that out, but because I didn’t need to make any preparations and could start whatever I wanted with whatever materials I may need, everything was sped-up." The old man replied, and both Evalia and Xenia, who also had some aspects of crafting in their occupations, looked at Eisen jealously.
"That’s such a cheat..." Evalia said with a wry smile, but Eisen just shook his head. "It would be unfair if I could actually keep the items, but I can’t even test them out. I can go through the process of making the items and increase the chances for better effects, but that’s all there really is to it. It’s useful for sure, though." Eisen said with a slight laugh, but the other two were still pretty jealous about a skill like that, but Eisen just moved on because he wanted to take a look at how town itself was doing right now.
"So, what’s the state of town?" Eisen asked as he turned toward Xenia, and she quickly just opened an information window, apparently, and took a look at the information she got from it.
"Well... A bunch of the buildings are finished up it seems, the Golems are helping out a whole lot... And it seems like due to Judah, the Golems are acting a bit more intelligent and coordinated as well. A few shop-like buildings were reconstructed already, and it seems like some of the golems want to man those shops. Some are acting somewhat like guards, and others are just trying to make sure that the town is clean. It would be more helpful if some people were here, but for now, this doesn’t seem so bad. I’m pretty sure we can lure a few Golemancers over here for sure. And when the Artificials get strong enough for the area, it should be a place for a lot of them to pop into as well." The High-Elf swiftly explained to the old man, before she turned toward Evalia with a smile on her face.
"Our little artist here actually spent the past day remodeling a lot of the golems to make them look more humanoid, they look incredibly life-like. She even painted them!" Xenia exclaimed, and Evalia slowly nodded her head with a smirk.
"Yup, as part of trying to rank my skills up. Ah, I also made a statue for the Church. It’s pretty small, but there surprisingly already was a building for it here. That Paladin Dragon Dude helped me set everything up properly, but a Priest to the Golem God needs to bless it first, and then it’s a proper church." Evalia explained, before slowly glaring at Xenia, "But stop patronizing me, you’re only like four years older than me..." She said while crossing her arms with a, quite obviously, fake pout, before Eisen chuckled and nodded his head.
"I see, that’s good to know. Well, one of the mass-production items I prototyped was an automatic printing-press. I’ll be travelling across the mainland after we set the town on Trygan’s island up, so I’ll make a printing-press and just spread ’recruitment’ flyers. We need a few more people for the central island as well, but most importantly, we need to just get the word out." Eisen suggested, and Jyuuk looked at Eisen with a wry smile, "You can make a printing-press but you make Komer hand-write contracts right now?"
"Well, the printing press would just give an incredibly small amount of proficiency, if any, and Komer does need Scribing proficiency. And he can probably make some special Fate contracts as well, so that’s why I told him to work on all that. And those contracts are mainly sub-guild contracts, and contracts to make sure that we can properly integrate Starlight, Komer’s Merchant Company, into its own sub-guild as well. And of course recruitment contracts so that everyone can invite promising individuals into their sub-guilds." The old man replied, and Brody looked at Eisen with a slight frown, "What, you want us to become Guildmasters as well?" He asked, and Eisen nodded his head immediately.
"Oh, yes, I thought we already spoke about that. It would be great to have a few specialized sub-branches, for example a branch focused on combat, then a branch focused on magic, one on crafting, art, taming, and so on. At the very least, that would make everything a little easier to manage, especially if I can create Guild Core Guardians for each Sub-Guild’s Core." Eisen pointed out, and Brody scratched the top of his head in response.
"How bothersome. Can’t we just give that task to some pencil-pushers?" While the Demon-Orc suggested this, Eisen just simple smiled at him and shook his head without hesitation.
"I only feel comfortable handing such a position to people that I trust." Eisen chuckled, and at this point, Brody couldn’t really protest anymore and just accepted his fate to become the Guildmaster of a Subguild.
"Now then, should we gather everyone and get back to the area with the ship?" The old man suggested, and right when he said that, Xenia crossed her arms and looked at him with a smug smile.
"Oh, but we’re already there!" She exclaimed, before Eisen raised his eyebrows surprised. "Ah, you made the Town bring us there, huh? Did you manage to take a look at that Divine item that Judah mentioned?" Eisen asked, and Xenia swiftly nodded her head.
"Yeah, I have actually! It’s pretty interesting, really, although I don’t exactly know how the crystal works, it’s probably just some source for something similar to an element." The High-Elf explained, so Eisen slowly nodded his head as the group slowly made their way to the nearest tunnel and quickly stepped through it, giving Eisen the chance to take a proper look at the Golems that Evalia reworked.
He really was incredibly impressed, that was something that Eisen couldn’t help but admit. For a few moments, Eisen thought he might accidentally mistake some of them for actual people, but they were really just standing there stone-faced, and the paint that Evalia applied to them didn’t directly hide all of the metallic aspects to them.
Either way, they were impressively realistic, as the old man expected from Evalia’s work, and soon enough the group made their way outside of the town, at which point Eisen could quickly see the ocean in front of him already, but then slowly turned toward Xenia with a curious smile.
"Could you show me what it looks like when standing up? I want to take a look at that crystal as well." The old man asked her, and the High-Elf quickly nodded her head and seemingly just thought about that command for a few moments, before Eisen could practically feel the ground shake underneath him.
And after the ground in front of him split up and rose into the air, Eisen quickly took an interested look at this giant Golem in front of him.
It didn’t seem to have any direct animal-inspiration to it, but just judging from the rough shape and size of the limbs and head, Eisen could only think of a Tortoise. And soon enough, Eisen also spotted the thing responsible for the Golem Creation, the large crystal spanning nearly the complete underbelly of the Town-Golem.
Currently, numerous golden drops were randomly forming all around the crystal and slowly moving toward the center of the crystal, where they all combined together into a large sphere. And before Eisen knew it, that sphere dropped down into the center of the crater, followed by another small water-like droplet, which Eisen just figured to be the actual golem core, because when the droplet hit the mass of gold, he could see that the precious material just started moving around.