Spending My Retirement In A Game

Eisen was that kind of person, and he had seen a lot of success in Parc and Rouge with this method.

But of course, there was still a limit to that kind of learning. There were types of knowledge and habits that had been built over generations that couldn't be learned directly in that sort of way, or theoretical knowledge that was needed to be able to truly understand what was happening. And that was the sort of lessons that Eisen was teaching right now.

Over the course of his own new craftsmanship experiences, he had uncovered some memories that revealed a few secrets here and there, that he himself had making use of subconsciously or through muscle-memory he had no knowledge of ever obtaining, but even to himself, realizing why this was the case was extremely useful.

And that sort of knowledge was quickly passed on to Parc and Rouge, not all at once, but at the points where Eisen felt they could really understand it.

These were mostly things related to magic, and the ways that the system, that force called 'experience', as well as whatever other mystical forces were flowing throughout the cornerstones of this world, affected the craftsman, the tool, and the material.

For these lessons, he mostly focused on the ways the materials were affected, trying to keep everything to a theme to help his apprentices digest it all a bit better. But even then, at the end of each day, those two were extremely exhausted, both physically and mentally.

They weren't only made to listen to Eisen's lesson, but he also expected them to continue some of their active practice simultaneously, though it was really just a way to push them into developing some more muscle-memory on their own.

And at the same time, Ambriel was always intently listening in, though they weren't really able to follow along quite as well. Clearly, they were interested in this to an extent, but Eisen didn't feel that it was the craftsmanship aspect that truly made them so curious.

Rather, they always seemed to perk up once the topic shifted more toward the actual forces, those mystical powers and how they interacted with craftsmanship, instead of the craft itself. Which of course, Eisen didn't particularly mind all too much. He appreciated that they were so curious in the first place, and even if the focus wasn't on Eisen's expertise, there was certainly still some in there.

However, as Ambriel entered the workshop this morning, Eisen stopped them.

With a worried expression, they looked up at the old man, "Did I... do something wrong?" they asked, taking a step back as their face paled. But Eisen just shook his head.

"No, no, of course not. It isn't anything like that. I was just thinking that maybe you would enjoy having a talk with Xenia instead. I spoke to her about it, and she said she wouldn't mind answering some of your questions about magic, and sorcery, or mystics, or basically anything it is you're curious about," the old man suggested, and Ambriel seemed a bit taken aback.

After a moment of thought, the angel nodded their head.

"I see... I would quite appreciate that, yes," they replied, seeming quite relieved that Eisen wasn't throwing them out, or even worse, realized that letting them out was a mistake in the first place before forcing them back into one of those dark jail cells.

That being the case, there still seemed to be some apprehension on Ambriel's face. At least they had already interacted a decent amount with Eisen before all of this happened, but that certainly wasn't the case with any of the others amongst the ones that peaked. And Ambriel had seen how Eisen could act when he was mad, and he still seemed the most...

stable to some degree, which certainly didn't bode well for the others. But at the end of the day, Ambriel had never heard anything bad about Xenia. Brody was known to get into brawls for the fun of it, and Jyuuk's experiments with the dead didn't make the angel feel great either, but Xenia was known to really only exist for the pursuit of knowledge.

To further her expertise in the forces of magic, even if she showed this with some rather eccentric behaviours sometimes.

"Don't worry," Eisen told Ambriel, seeing the expression on their face, "If you ask Xenia questions earnestly, she will do her best to reply to you with as much detail as she can. Though, maybe sometimes a bit too much detail, but that's something you learn to deal with pretty soon. If you want to sate your curiosity, she's definitely the one to go to."

"...I will keep that in mind," Ambriel replied, slowly approaching the door again, "So where should I go, exactly?"

Eisen followed along to step in front of the workshop's door, and pointed at the castle's highest tower, which had been expanded upon over the past few months. It was a little jarring when Xenia just started shoving extra rooms onto the side of it at first, but Evalia made sure that it at least wasn't aesthetically displeasing.

And at the same time, Serio and Girland were responsible enough to make sure that every part of the tower was structurally sound even without the explicit use of magic, just in case something went wrong. Nobody wanted to see that tower crumble down onto the rest of the castle, or even worse, the busy streets that really weren't all too far away.

"Basically, Xenia is usually at the top of that tower recently," Eisen pointed out, "You should see a couple of mannequin-golems running around the castle, Xenia has them run errands for her so she can concentrate on other things. You can try following one of them, or alternatively, you can try to fly in through one of the windows, but...

dependong on what Xenia is working on at that moment it could be a bit risky," the old man pointed out, his eyes flashing golden for a second or two, before he turned back to the angel, "Though it doesn't seem like they're working on anything major at the moment, so that should be fine?"

Ambriel didn't seem any more confident after hearing Eisen's words, and slowly spread out their wings. As they flapped their wings, their neatly kept feathers came into a bit of disarray, but that was quickly corrected once Ambriel actually took flight. Just in case, Eisen watched as Ambriel approached the tower's windows, seeing them carefully climb inside.

Seeing that nothing was happening, and especially that neither Serio or Girland showed up by his side, it seemed like Ambriel arrived safely by Xenia's side.

That being the case, Eisen quickly turned back around, walking back into his workshop. Parc and Rouge should also arrive soon, but today was set up for some more practical lessons where the two of them could make use of the theoretically knowledge that Eisen had taught to them over the past few days.

It was the perfect opportunity for Eisen to start testing out the process of creating the materials needed for the rooms that could block Samuel. Part of the ingredients had finally arrived, though not enough to create a space at the scale they needed for the peace-treaty meeting. But it was certainly enough for Eisen to get used to the process and relearn it.

If he was lucky, he could make use of this opportunity to recover some memories about the secrets behind this material, and maybe he could learn some other uses for it, or figure out what specifically about these materials made them useful for the process, since Eisen didn't seem to fully understand the seemingly random assortment of materials, not to mention, the complete disarray in their ranks.

Usually, you would try to use as high-rank materials as you could for the greatest effect, but it seemed like there was some specific synergy effect that came with the particular assortment of rank 1 and 2 materials as they combined with these specific rank 7 and 8 materials.