Chapter 494: Shotgun
"You want a staff." Eisen repeated, and the elderly man in front of him, Dentex, slowly nodded his head, "Yes."
"A staff that looks like a shotgun?" He asked again, before Dentex once more just nodded, "Yes."
With a slight sigh, Eisen rubbed the bridge of his nose and looked back at him again, "You know what, sure. Sounds good. Do you have an element?" Eisen asked him, and the elderly man, who most likely was just a kid pretending to be an old man, crossed his arms with a smug expression.
"Of course I do! It is one that the dead have led me to! It is the shadow element!" Dentex exclaimed, obviously being way too loud at the moment, before Eisen grabbed a couple of gems and crystals, "Then please extend your arm, I"m going to use that element in the making of your staff. Do you want me to make it so that you can use it well for necromancy as well?" He inquired, and after a bit of thought, Dentex shrugged and nodded his head.
"I am already one with the dead, but it can"t hurt to be more than one."
"Sure it can"t." Eisen replied, and then swiftly started to enchant some crystals and gems with Dentex"s shadow element as well as his necromancy skill and then placed them away, "You can come pick it up tonight. If you"re not here by then, I"m going to leave it with the Crafter"s Guild here in town, so I"ll give you a note... And he"s gone..." The old man said with a grumble, and then crumbled the piece of paper that he was writing on up again.
"Well, let"s hope he"ll be here." Eisen thought to himself, but Sky just looked at Eisen confusedly, "What the h.e.l.l was that guy on?" He asked, and Eisen turned toward him and leaned forward, "That was an artificial. They"re weird like that sometimes." He whispered, so Sky just sighed annoyedly.
"Let"s hope they don"t get murderous..." Sky muttered, and Eisen slightly chuckled, "I don"t think that"s going to happen, don"t worry." He said, and then turned away toward his two apprentices.
Since Eisen couldn"t get started with the staff just yet in the first place, as he had to first create the magic materials that he needed, he chose to maybe just help those two out a bit.
"Do you two need any help?" Eisen asked curiously, but both of them just shook their heads, "Not really help, I think." Rouge pointed out as he held one bottle of a potion he just finished refilling up, "More like..."
"Tips? Or my thoughts on how you"re doing?" The old man figured, and Parc swiftly smiled, "That"s what we"d like at least, yeah."
"Then let"s do exactly that." The old man said, and then started watching Parc and Rouge work, trying to copy their motions with mana-copy so that he could properly compare them to what they would end up moving like a couple weeks or months from now.
"Parc, loosen up a bit, you"re too tense. You"ll tire yourself out too quickly if you keep going like that." Eisen pointed out, "Try not to hold the hammer that tightly, and don"t try to move every part of your arm at once. Just let certain parts of your arm control the others and tense up when you need to." Eisen explained, trying to demonstrate what he meant, and Parc slowly nodded his head and tried it out again.
Parc was currently trying to get rid of the dents in a s.h.i.+eld, and since it was the item that a customer gave him for repairs, he had to do as good a job as possible.
Seeing that Parc"s movements immediately improved, Eisen turned toward Rouge and looked at him a bit more closely. Rouge was working on restocking the stall"s potions, and all that Eisen could help him with right now was telling him that he shouldn"t try to rush like he was and concentrate more on grinding things down evenly.
But otherwise, his technique was perfect, as it was something that Eisen"s apprentices had been doing a rather fair amount since they started working under him.
For now, Eisen figured that they were both doing a rather good job, and as such he didn"t necessarily have much to help them out with or tips to give them, and instead chose to simply work together with them a little bit to take some of the load off of them.
For a few hours, that"s what Eisen was doing, until the materials for the shotgun-shaped staff was done, and the old man swiftly stood up and grabbed the materials that he had been infusing for the past couple hours and placed them into his ap.r.o.n after he increased his size to the maximum so that he actually had enough s.p.a.ce to do so. 1
And then, Eisen looked down at the others, "I"ll be heading to the local smithy now. It shouldn"t take too long."
But with a grumble, Sky stared back up at the half-giant and crossed his arms, "Can"t you just get everything done here? It"s not like you don"t have control over your element."
"It"s fine, I get that people might be worried about fire in a dense forest like this. Let"s just make sure that nothing can go wrong. I"ll head to the smithy, and then come back here when I"m done." Eisen explained, and then with a smile turned around and started making his way through the town toward the place he was looking for.
And with a smile on his face, Eisen stepped through the door, although he did have to decrease his size a little, and then looked around the shop, looking for someone to help him out.
But since Eisen didn"t really see anyone here in the front, he chose to just head to the door to the back and knocked on it. A couple moments later, that door was then swiftly opened up and hot air streamed toward the old man.
"What?" A deep, grumbling voice asked, and Eisen soon identified the source of that voice. It was a relatively young Bull Beastperson, maybe twenty or so years old, and he looked Eisen up and down immediately, just forming a grimacing expression.
"I wanted to see if I could possibly make use of your smithy for a few hours." It won"t take too long, really." Eisen said rea.s.suredly, but the young Bull just kept grumbling to himself and then shook his head as he was about to close the door.
"We"re full." He said, but before he could actually close the door, Eisen placed his hand in front of it and kept it open. He was far, far above the average level for regular blacksmiths, after all, so his strength was incomparable to this young man"s.
"Could I please speak to the owner of this smithy instead?" Eisen asked with a light smile on his face, and with an annoyed groan, the young man turned around and yelled into the smithy, "Dad! Someone wants to talk to you!" He exclaimed, and a few moments later, another Bull Beastperson appeared in front of Eisen, although this one was far taller and obviously stronger as well. He was quite bulky, really, and Eisen was honestly wondering how he was able to fit his large horns through this door.
"What is it?" He asked with a slight frown, obviously similarly rude as his son, and Eisen just repeated what he asked before, "I would like to make use of your smithy for a few hours. I"m going to pay you for it, of course."
"Hmm..." The Bull Beastperson hummed quietly, and kept looking him up and down, "If you can show me somethin" that you made, we"ll see. There"s a lot of people that want to use s.p.a.ce in the workshop these days, so we can"t let in just anyone." He pointed out, and Eisen slowly nodded his head.
That did make sense. Most people weren"t able to create their own smithies like Eisen was just using magic, so they had to make use of already-existing smithies. So, Eisen figured he could just show off his Mult.i.tool, and swiftly pulled it out of his ap.r.o.n and handed it to the Bull.
"Here you go. Everything I have on me I made myself, but that"s one of my more special pieces." Eisen explained, and the Bull took a look at it with a slight frown.
"This ain"t just a hammer, is it?" He asked, and Eisen immediately shook his head, "Exactly, it"s not." The old man explained, and then started taking it apart to show that it could be turned into different tools at once.
But when it was turned back into the hammer-mode and the Bull tried to actually hold it like he would a usual hammer, the mult.i.tool immediately increased its size and seemingly became even heavier than it usually would, making it impossible for the bull to lift it off the ground again.
"What the?" The Bull Blacksmith asked with a puzzled expression, and Eisen looked down at the mult.i.tool as well, "Ahh, please don"t tell me that it"s going to get as cranky as the Sword..." Eisen sighed annoyedly as he placed his hand on it and swiftly transferred his will to it to make it turn back into the size it was supposed to be at while picking it up. 1
"Sorry, this tool is actual an Ego-Tool. It"s in the upper end of its fourth ego-rank right now, so it"s a little hard to control when it gets annoyed."
"Y-You have an ego tool? Did you make it yourself?" The Bull Beastperson asked immediately as he stared at it, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response, "Yeah I have. Is that enough to be able to use your smithy?"
"Use my smithy? If you were younger than me, I"d let you inherit it!" He exclaimed immediately and then pushed the door open some more and just waited for Eisen to step inside.
"Just use whatever you need to, free of charge!" The bull yelled out as he tried to clear a workstation up. He knew that only incredibly skilled people were capable of creating Ego-Items, so it made sense for him to be that excited. But rea.s.suredly, Eisen just shook his head.
"Don"t worry, I have everything I need already with me. I just need to work on a request someone gave me." The old man pointed out, and then slowly started to take the different materials he now had with him out of his ap.r.o.n and looked at the forge that the Bull had prepared for him. Without hesitation, Eisen got started with his work.