The morning afterward, after Eisen brought the dead Dragon egg back to the Harbor and into the "Meeting" room on the s.h.i.+p, because it was the best place to keep it due to its size, and then went to bed, the old man helped as much as he could to set up the different areas of the s.h.i.+p. And then, for the rest of the day, he didn"t have that much to do, which is why he called the Originals together again to talk about their new "Project" once more.
"Is everything alright?" Jyuuk asked since he didn"t expect Eisen to call them into the meeting room again, but Eisen nodded. "Yeah, everything"s alright, don"t worry. I just wanted you guys to be aware that I got us the bones." He explained, pointing at the egg next to him before Brody tilted his head to the side.
"I don"t know about you guys, but to me, that just looks like a rock." The Demon-Orc said, before Eisen sighed loudly.
"This is just an egg. It petrified or something, and Bolremgar told me that there are only bones inside. Honestly, though, Bol was acting pretty weird yesterday when I met with him." Eisen said before calling Jyuuk over to him, and Xenia asked what he meant with a bit of confusion.
"Weird? What do you mean?" Xenia asked, and Eisen just shrugged. "I don"t know, he was just a bit cold, you know? I asked him for a Hatchling"s Bones, and he didn"t even hesitate to give me a dead dragon egg. Besides the fact that it was much to easy to get this, his reaction just felt off." He explained, but Jyuuk figured he had an explanation for that.
"Well, they are monsters, after all. They are completely different to us not only in their physical properties but their race-specific social structure is probably quite polar to ours. That"s the case a lot of the time. After all, there"s a lot of different animals "literally" eating their children after they are born, so maybe there"s not much sympathy amongst dragons. Or Bolremgar has a screw or two loose." He explained, and Eisen thought to would have to accept it like that, before returning to the topic at hand.
"Anyway… Jyuuk, help me properly crack this egg without damaging anything. I don"t know how brittle the bones are now." Eisen explained, and Jyuuk immediately nodded his head. "Good idea. The sh.e.l.l itself has completely petrified already so that the bones might be as well. If we"re not careful, we"ll just destroy the-" Jyuuk muttered before starting with trying to open a small crack at the top of the sh.e.l.l before an incredibly foul stench attacked his nose.
"Well, this definitely isn"t petrified… but it doesn"t smell like it"s a rotten egg…" He muttered before Evalia turned away and started holding her nose at the stench. "But it"s a Lizard egg, right? So it wouldn"t smell like a chicken egg…" She answered as she opened the door and stood in the open to escape whatever that smell was.
"I"m aware of that. I was saying it doesn"t smell like a rotten egg even considering the species. It"s more like… Yeah, I know that smell… It"s a type of venom." Jyuuk explained, immediately activating his racial skill, making his fur expand a little bit while his body"s figure changed just ever so slightly to be more nimble.
"Yes, it"s definitely a venom, but not a normal one we"re used to, Probably some kind of variation on a Hemotoxin," Jyuuk muttered out, before jumping off the top of the egg and looking at Eisen. "Hold it still for a second, and don"t let anything of that stuff inside there spill." The Monkey-Beastperson said, and Eisen did as instructed, while Jyuuk continued to look around the side of the egg until he found what he was looking for.
"As I thought… There"s a part of the petrified rock here that"s a different color than the rest of the egg, and…" Jyuuk muttered as he began to knock on the actual egg and then the discolored spot, "…and its density is different. Something found these eggs and injected a strong, possibly magically enhanced, hemotoxin into them. It"s some kind of reptilian, just judging from the incision-mark. Maybe Snake-Like with an earth elemental nature to create a casing that its venom couldn"t eat through. It probably did so to eat the egg at a later point, but was interrupted before then." Jyuuk said, finally coming to a conclusion.
"We should make some kind of Mana-Crystal Casing for the venom and empty the venom in the egg out into it." He said, and Eisen immediately nodded his head and looked at Brody, who was already turning around and was on his way to get the needed materials.
"Are the bones going to be still in there?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk nodded his head. "Probably. Most Hemotoxins only affect different tissues and can"t directly do anything to the bones that easily. Depending on how long it"s been like this, their outermost layer may have been affected a bit, but not too much. Especially considering that they are Dragon Bones, even if they belong to an unhatched one." Jyuuk answered immediately, and Eisen nodded in relief, still holding the large egg up before Brody finally returned with a large number of mana crystals, which were swiftly shaped into a high-rimmed tub by Xenia.
Carefully, Eisen then formed the opening that Jyuuk created at the top into a light funnel shape so that they could control everything better, and then began to pour the Venom out of the egg.
The deep black liquid now gave off an even more disgusting smell that began to fill the whole room as the egg became more and more empty.
And at the end, Eisen was holding a venom-free petrified dragon egg. "Alright, now we should seal the tub up and open the egg on a surface covered with mana crystal," Jyuuk said next. Xenia immediately did as suggested and closed the top of the tub, before trying to figure out some kind of Magic Circle to get rid of the disgusting smell, while Eisen was preparing the area where he would open the egg up.
"Carefully now," Jyuuk told Eisen, who nodded his head and began to split the egg up the side using trans.m.u.tation. A few more drops of venom spilled out while this was happening, but nothing major, so both Eisen and Jyuuk would call this a success. Soon enough, Eisen could pull the two halves of the egg away from each other, revealing a completely intact, somewhat mummified, skeleton in the shape of a small dragon.
The eggsh.e.l.l itself was also of quite a high quality. The inside of it had crystal-like structures growing off it, but they gave Eisen too eery of a feeling to try and touch them without protection, so he didn"t even think about it anymore.
"Alright… We"re going to completely close this room off so that n.o.body else can come in and turn this into the place where we create the new Homunculus body." Eisen said as he took another look at the skeleton inside of the eggsh.e.l.l, turning away after doing so.
"For now, let"s proceed as planned. The workers are doing their best, setting everything up under Komer"s supervision. Evalia, please continue with the sails. Jyuuk and Brody, please go out and hunt for a while, and Xenia, go out with them. Your magic should be a good bit of help as well, and you"ll know what materials are best to make magic concoctions or items. I"ll stay here and prepare the egg and skeleton a bit." Eisen told them before everyone quickly nodded and rushed out of the room to escape the smell, once more leaving Eisen alone in there. He didn"t feel like being alone, so he wanted to call someone to stay up here with him while he was working.
But he didn"t want to ask either Caria or Melissa, as they were simply children, nor did he want to ask Bree or Sky, because Bree was busy with Dien at the moment, and Sky was, to be quite frank, not the type of person that could stand the look of this kind of thing for even a moment.
He also didn"t want to ask Kiron, as he was struggling with his self-ident.i.ty anyway, and Eisen didn"t want to somehow negatively influence that in any way by showing him the skeleton of a nearly-born dragon. So, Eisen chose to ask the only person that felt right. Mentally, Eisen commanded Aulu to stand up and leave the carriage, before making her way over to Kirisho to make the spirit follow her up to the room in the s.h.i.+p that Eisen was currently working. A few minutes later, the Mist Spirit stepped through the door, before Eisen told Aulu to go back to the carriage and continue to protect everything.
"Yes, Eisen? Is everything alright?" Kirisho asked, and Eisen nodded his head. "Everything"s fine, I just wanted a little company, and you were the only one that felt right to ask at the moment," Eisen explained. As he began to cover his hands in a super thin layer of mana crystals and softened them so that he could practically use it like a glove, and Kirisho looked at him and the objects in front of him in surprise.
"I see, is that so? I"m… quite glad you think that way." The mist-spirit answered, and Eisen smiled at her before she asked, "What are you doing here, then?"
"The five of us are working on a new project, and a full set of dragon bones was a quite desirable material for that. I went to see Bolremgar, and he gave me a petrified egg, and although it had all that venom over there inside of it, it also had this mummified skeleton." He answered as he slowly picked the dragon-embryo"s skeleton up, bringing it over to the side and laying it down on another area covered with mana crystals.
"I see…" Kirisho answered as she slowly walked up behind Eisen and took a look at what he was doing.
Slowly, Eisen took out his knife and began to cut up the leftover tissue on the outside of the skeleton to be able to remove the bones.
"Why do you seem so sad doing this?" Kirisho asked after a while, noticing Eisen"s expression before the old man just shrugged. "I"m not sure. It may be because of my reaction toward Xenia"s Gift, despite her really just wanting to impress me? I mean, that"s probably it for the most part, and the rest is me feeling weird about using an embryo for a creation." Eisen explained as he began to place the bones to the side one by one, and after a few seconds, Kirisho told Eisen what she thought.
"I do not know what exactly happened, but I do know that you are a kind person. And if you hurt her, then you should probably just talk to her about what is going on." She said before Eisen quietly nodded.
"Yeah, I probably should do that. I"ll talk to Xenia later today." Eisen answered, before he continued to disa.s.semble the skeletal mummy, placing each bone to the side individually.
After a while, Eisen was finished with that and even managed to level his "Dismembering" skill up quite a bit, before he then started to clean the bones and make sure they were in good enough condition to use for the Homunculus" body before he looked over to the spirit next to him.
"Kirisho, do you ever feel like you want to be alive again?" Eisen asked, before Kirisho seemed to think about that question for a while, before shaking her head. "No, I do not. My life was not a good one, and I have barely any fond memories of that time. But my afterlife, with a few exceptions, of course, was just so peaceful that it felt like I was in heaven sometimes after all. I do not have any regrets left in my past life, so I do not wish to return to that." She explained, and Eisen quietly listened before nodding his head.
"No regrets, huh..?" He quietly muttered as he continued cleaning the bones.