Spending My Retirement In A Game

"A Darkness elemental? What do you mean?" Eisen asked rather confused, before Xenia grabbed the end of the staff and sligthly tilted it so that she could get a better look at everything. "Basically, this just turned into a magnifying glass... kind of? And I know what elemental spirits look like because I can see them inside of everyone’s body... So I can see a Darkness elemental in the distance right now. Although..." The high-elf muttered to herself, before scratching tilting her head to the side slightly.

"It seems kind of weird, to be honest..." She explained, and the old man looked down at Xenia with a frown.

"What do you mean, ’Weird’?" He asked, and Xenia swiftly explained. "Well... We’re still in the dungeon, right?" She asked with a wry smile, but Sigurd quickly appeared out of nowhere directly next to the two.

"My Mistress, that is simply because you can still see the outside world through the walls of the Dungeon. It is as if we’re in a compressed space right inside of Fafnir’s body, so what you’re seeing like that is simply directly outside of him." The Core Guardian explained, seeming rather curious about the item at the top of the Staff as well, before Xenia slowly nodded her head.

"I see... Thanks, Sigurd... But either way, it doesn’t seem to be that far away. Eisen, should we leave the dungeon for a moment and see where the Elemental actually is?" Xenia asked with a light smile and dog eyes, knowing that Eisen still had work to do, but even then the old man couldn’t really say ’No’ to her just like that. After all, this would only help Xenia’s skills further so that she would be able to properly use the staff at some point or another, and that’s just exactly what the old man wanted to happen. It wouldn’t be great if it simply stood around in random places, after all.

"Fine, but let’s hurry up then." The old man replied and immediately stepped toward the exit while Xenia followed him, and the moment they were outside, Xenia continued trying to pinpoint the location of the elemental.

"Ah! It’s behind the ship!" She exclaimed excitedly before getting closer to the windows and trying to see how far exactly it was away, before noticing something rather peculiar which made her feel slightly like an idiot.

"So... It seems like the gem isn’t a magnifying glass..." She explained with a wry smile, but Eisen just looked at her confused, before Xenia told him what she meant. "It seems to focus directly on nearby elementals in a certain direction... Sure, it might magnify it, but that’s not directly how it works... That’s my guess at least, because I can see the elemental even without it... Because it’s following about ten meters behind the ship..." Xenia told the old man in front of her, who simply shook his head with a deep sigh.

"Really? Then why didn’t you notice it beforehand?" Eisen asked with a frown as he crossed his arms, before the High-Elf just shrugged. "I don’t know, I don’t use Spirit Sight that often!" She answered immediately, and Eisen slowly sighed.

"Alright, at the very least we know how this thing works now. If it’s a Darkness Elemental, maybe it’s been following us ever since we went to the Mana Source. Do you know how we can get it on board?" Eisen asked curiously, and Xenia just scratched her cheek. "Maybe we can just ask the skeletons to slow down a little bit... now that I can see it properly, it seems like it’s just barely fast enough to to match our speed, so it should be able to get here when we slow down." She explained, so the old man nodded his head and stepped out of the door and went down to the floor below the meeting room, the control center, where the ’Captain’ of the Skeletons was sitting most of the time, and asked it to slow the ship down.

Immediately, the Skeleton stood up and saluted to the old man, before clattering its jaw while looking outside to the main deck, where the other skeletons seemed to react nearly immediately by pulling up the sails.

"Alright, that was easy enough, I guess." Eisen muttered to himself and swiftly made his way back up to the Meeting room, although it seemed like Xenia was at the very top of the structure so that she could get a clearer look at the Elemental from there.

And to her surprise, it seemed like the elemental was able to get there quite swiftly now and ’Climbed’ up the side of the ship. It didn’t really ’Climb’ anything, it was more like it slid across the surface. Eisen himself couldn’t see any of this, but luckily, Xenia explained to him what was going on.

"The elemental is up here now... It’s a Darkness elemental in the shape of a... snake? I guess? It’s kind of sea-serpent-ish, but it’s made of black mist..." Xenia explained, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Do you want to make a contract with it? That’s how it works, right?" The old man asked, and Xenia nodded her head, seemingly in response to both questions, as she extended her hand forward.

And before he knew it, Xenia opened her mouth and was speaking, although what came out of her mouth wasn’t english, or any language that he knew of, actually, and soon enough, a three meter long pure black snake appeared out of basically nowhere.

"It worked!" Xenia exclaimed as she threw her arms up excitedly, and Eisen immediately turned to the High-Elf. "What exactly just happened?" He asked with a wry smile, and Xenia just grinned at him. "I was speaking in the spirit language. I can do that by just infusing my throat with my element, and whatever I’m saying will be directly translated into the Spirit Language. Basically, I asked the Elemental if it wants to form a contract with me, and it accepted and told me its name, so here it is!" She exclaimed while the pitch-black snake began to climb up Xenia’s arm and slung itself around her whole body.

"You hate spiders more than anything, but you’re fine with a three meter long snake? And didn’t you say it’s mist-like?" Eisen asked, and Xenia nodded before rubbing her hand over the snakes head.

"Yeah, well, Snakes and Spiders are very different! And yeah, when you make a contract with a Spirit, their form slightly changes, especially so with elementals." She explained, before the snake began to move again, this time stretching its body directly into the air, before disappearing into nothingness again.

"I see... And what was that?" Eisen inquired, before he and Xenia slowly made their way back to the Dungeon entrance.

"Ah, that’s just Ragnar disappearing back into the ’Spirit Realm’, which is what the version of the world when seen through spirit-sight is called. Until they’re needed, that’s where one’s spirits are. They can’t interact with the regular world like that, but they’re still technically here and can see everything that’s going on." She explained, and Eisen nodded with a smile before asking her about the name ’Ragnar’ that she chose for the Serpent, but Xenia shook her head immediately.

"Oh, no, a summoner doesn’t give a name to a spirit. The Spirit already had a name, and it was ’Ragnar’. Well, that’s what it is when spoken in english... In the Spirit language it has hundreds of variations, and the right variation is only used when you have the right intent in your mind. Every spirit has a unique name in the spirit language, after all." Xenia told the old man, who just nodded his head curiously.

"And what exactly can you do with ’Ragnar’ now?" Eisen asked her, and Xenia just scratched her cheek.

"Well, let me just check..." She answered before seemingly pulling up an information window. "Ah, it seems like Ragnar is specialized in ’Constraint’, so that’s probably all it can do as well. It’s going to hold enemies in place, basically. Pretty fitting for a snake like that, huh?" Xenia told Eisen, and the old man just replied with a laugh.

"I guess so, yeah. Well, either way, here’s your staff. If you want me to help you look for more Spirits, let me know." Eisen told her with a smile, before he remembered something that wasn’t on his mind at all for a while now.

"Or rather... Can you help me with something if you’re not too busy teaching the Goblins?" Eisen asked Xenia, and she quite furiously nodded her head.

"Of course! After making me a staff like this, I owe you one!" She exclaimed, and the old man replied with a laugh. "That’s good to know. I need four different magic metals... We should still have just enough of everything for it. If you have the time, can you infuse some gold with fire elemental mana, some silver with earth elemental mana, some iron with air elemental mana, and some bronze with water elemental mana? One pound each." Eisen asked her with a grin on his face, although he felt rather stupid for forgetting about all of this up until now. After all, the box that he found inside of his soul storage was one of the few great mysteries of this world that Eisen had not a single clue about what it had to do with.

For now, the old man figured that he should at least use the leftover elemental mana to create the different metals to unlock the box.

"Oh, sure, I can do that... erm, which materials are which exactly?" Xenia asked with a wry smile, before Eisen just chuckled in response.

"There’s a small sign in front of them that tells you which one it is. And besides, you have appraisal, don’t you?" Eisen answered, before the High-Elf slowly nodded her head slightly embarrassedly before stepping out of the dungeon again to make her way to the material storage.

"Alright, now, let’s continue... what else did I need to make?" Eisen muttered to himself as he stepped up to the area where his apprentices, as well as his Grandson and the Woodworker-Kobold, were currently working. They were all seemingly finishing up one item each as the last part of the Woodworking lessons, so the old man figured he had enough time for one more small item, and he already had a rather good idea what that item should be.

With a smile on his face, Eisen grabbed a piece of wood that he asked Komer to buy for him especially for this project. It was a special type of material called ’Fleeting Wood’, coming from an Ent-type monster similar to that ’Brawling Tree’ that Brody kept mumbling about every once in a while, just one that instead of trying to fight whoever comes into its ’Territory’, it’s a type of Ent that just runs away from anyone.

The material itself isn’t necessarily an especially high-quality one, but it’s something rather hard to get due to the Ent’s behaviour, so the material is a little pricy. But even then, Eisen figured it was a good base to use for Evalia’s mask that would help her hide from any players that might recognize her, as the ’Fleeting Wood’ was a type that was often used to create equipment for assassins, thieves, spies, and so on. Basically, anyone that needed to be as inconspicuous as possible. And that was just perfect for Evalia outside of ’Performances’!

So, Eisen swiftly grabbed the piece of paper with the design for the mask on it, and then hurried up and carved it out of the wood. The mask itself wasn’t really that much of a special shape, just that it was made to perfectly fit Evalia’s face as well as possible. It had a little bit of an outline of her facial features, but for the most part, it was just a blank, flat mask. At least on the outside.

On the inside, Eisen had quite a bit of fun playing around with a few different things. First of all, he placed the smallest Mana Battery that he could manage to create while keeping a rather large level of mana-storage capabilities into the mask, and then continued creating an enchantment that was covering the whole inside of the mask, basically just doing one thing, placing a ’Hiding’ effect on the person that was wearing it. On top of that, the old man treated the mask with the help of an ’Sneak Potion’, which allowed someone to blend into the environment more easily.

And after Eisen did that, all was left was to paint this mask in bright, absolutely not inconspicuos colors, just like he and Evalia had planned.