Spending My Retirement In A Game

In front of Eisen stood three large trees, trying to push their roots into the ground. They were being tied down with chains so that they wouldn't move. Each one had a large crack in their bark revealing a large hollow space that practically rotted away.

In there sat a dark mist that spread throughout the entirety of the trees' trunks, enveloping the whole thing and wrapping around the leaves and branches.

"You didn't have to bring them so quickly," Eisen pointed out. He didn't mind, obviously, but he didn't like putting pressure on his friends like this. Jyuuk was busy enough on his own without doing favors for Eisen.

Jyuuk scoffed and shook his head, "It's all good, I was actually quite curious myself," he pointed out, glancing at the trees, "You said that using treant wood you can make items that move autonomously, right? I was wondering about that process, because treants seem to be less the actual trees themselves, but more like the mana within the trees that has gained a remblance of sentience.

And then that mana manipulates the rest of the tree through its skills and abilities. But without those skills, how is the wood supposed to move?"

Curious, Eisen raised his brow, "Wait, it's the mana that's manipulating the body?"

"Mhm, as far as I can tell so far. I was speaking to Xenia about it and she seemed to remember something related to that, though she hasn't synced with that memory yet so we can't know for sure what it was," Jyuuk explained, "What about you, do you remember something now that you're looking at them?"

"...Not exactly, but to me, treants sound like naturally-occuring golems," Eisen pointed out, activating his truth-seeing eyes. He quickly saw the flow of mana through the three monsters, and was quite surprised by what he saw, "Oh?"

"What is it?" Jyuuk asked curiously, glancing back and forth between Eisen and the trees.

"The flow is surprisingly similar to how guardians work," the old man explained, "I mean, that makes sense, guardians are an advanced application of golemancy, and if golemancy works similarly to treants in the first place, it makes sense that I took inspiration from that in the past..."

"Does that mean you could just make those gears with golemancy?"

"...I don't think so," Eisen replied, thinking about it for a moment, "So, if you say that treants manipulate their bodies through a skill, then... the guardians are trying to copy those skills, but there's still a difference there."

The old man increased his size, reaching up to one of the leaves. He plucked it from the branch, carefully watching the mana. And with a smile, he nodded his head, "Alright, that's perfect. A treant can keep track of their mana even some distance away, which most golems can't. They need to be physically connected to spread their mana.

I'd usually use something like crystal threads to conduct the mana if I don't have much else to work with, but if I use a treant... I should be able to create different parts that are spread out and in direct control of a single core... and maybe if I adapt the 'commander' concept I came up with in in the giants' country, I could even have a single golem with multiple concurrently working bodies...

And that's great, but this actually makes this a bit more annoying."

"Hm? How so?" Jyuuk wondered. He still didn't know exactly what Eisen was going to use those autonomous gears for.

"So, basically... I want small parts that move on their own, but without the self-adaption of golems. No matter how precise you are in the commands, a golem will always sort of do its own thing at a certain level, which doesn't work great for precision. I need parts that I can make move at an even speed, and an even strength, forever. But that's easier said than done."

"Why can't you just use enchantments for it? There's force enchantments, right?"

"Well, yes, but they're not really the most efficient thing when you're adding force. Removing force is surprisingly easy, but adding it drains a lot of mana. I'm trying to make something that uses as little energy as possible.

Obviously I could do it with enchantments, this is mostly just an attempt at improving my craft and efficiency a bit," Eisen sighed lightly, feeling almost embarrassed, "Truth be told, it's very easy for me to forget the standards of this world. Yes, most people have some form of magic, but it's really hard for people to properly make use of it to the degree that we can.

Especially commoners, or people without a decent education end up falling behind just because they have less mana to work with. So trying to minimize exactly how much mana is relied on feels like a good place to start. Though, obviously, using something like treant wood might not be the best for that either, but I'm just exploring my options right now."

Jyuuk listened to the old man's explanation, nodding his head in understanding, "Right, this world does rely on magic in some... bothersome ways."

"Right. Almost everything with some level of convenience uses mana. People with money can hire expensive mana batteries to power them, and those with a lot of mana can just power the objects themselves. But at the same time, we can't just switch to the systems we have on earth.

Yes, there might be new methods of producing electricity other than things like fossil fuels, but it might also be a lot cheaper for them to choose that method at a certain scale. Industrialisation has already damaged our world, I don't want it to hurt this one. I can't even imagine what sort of consequences the disturbance of nature and its mana could have on this place."

While Eisen was saying that, part of his reasoning was also just because he felt like this world had been so deeply adapted to mana that it would be easier and faster to advance civilisation by keeping mana at its core, instead of switching to a completely different source of energy.

This way they could make use of the benefits of enchantments and magic on top of principles of electrical engineering, similarly to how they created a magic engine for the trains.

Jyuuk crossed his arms, "Then how are you going to do this?"

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"...I'm not sure yet. I feel like there might be a way to do this anyway?" Eisen wondered, "I saw them in my memories, I know that it's possible to create objects like that, that can move with a literally minimal, less than ambient amount of mana in extremely precise ways, and I know that treant wood is the core of it."

With a long sigh, Jyuuk placed his hands onto his hips, "Well, I assume I better get started trying to create more treants for you so I don't have to keep hauling them here."

Eisen smiled, looking over at the beastman, "Thank you, I appreciate that a lot. But for now," he said, picking up one of the treants and uprooting it, "I'll get started trying to make this work."

Before the craftsman was able to leave, Jyuuk looked at Eisen curiously, "What exactly is it that you want to make the gears for anyway?"

"Oh," the old man let out, "I didn't mention that? I want to make clocks."

"...Clocks? Those are a thing already, aren't they?"

"Obviously they are, but the ones that currently exist have either extremely high upkeep costs or can only be bought by very influential people in the first place, or usually both. Even the clock towers require very complex systems of providing mana for them. If I create cheaper clocks, they can be spread through to smaller villages or towns.

That feels like a small, but vastly important thing to start with."