Spending My Retirement In A Game

"Alright, let’s take a look then, shall we?" The old man suggested as the others went to stand behind him while Eisen opened the door up, and then stepped through into the room in front of them.

It was a relatively simple room, although the floor and the walls were made out of stone bricks similar to those of the Arch that made up the doorway. In the center of the room stood a small pedestal, forming something like an altar together with the small purple crystal floating above it. It was about a third of what the Dungeon Core was before they combined it with the Homunculus Core.

"Huh, so this is the core room? Interesting." Xenia thought to herself while everyone looked around a little bit, and Eisen stepped up to the Dungeon Core to see if he could see any new information by doing so before suddenly a sort of apparition looking exactly like Fafnir jumped out of the crystal.

"Oh, so you can be inside of here as well?" The old man asked with a smile as he squatted down and extended his hand to let the small Dragon climb onto his arm.

"Hmm, but I don’t see anything new we can do here... Well, I did find the Core Guardian blueprints directly next to the Dungeon core, and the whole room was just about a dozen or so meters away from the main tunnel of a mine. Maybe this was supposed to be found early on in the whole ’Dungeon Master’ arc that Samuel told me about so that these Core Guardians can be made to assist players with everything." Eisen said as he looked at the others next to him, who were listening to Eisen’s thoughts.

"Maybe. But I have to say, this room is probably the perfect place to hold any ’Secret Meetings’ or something. Because only we can get inside of here, right?" She pointed out, and Eisen nodded his head.

"Yeah, I think so. And this dungeon, in general, is assuredly a good place to level up different skills. It’s going to help us quite a lot. And to top it off, it might be a great source of income, just like Komer mentioned to me before." Eisen explained to them before he moved back toward the door leading back to the first room of the dungeon so that he could make his way outside.

"I think I’ll get started on the Core Guardian. It’s best to figure out if anything is missing before our last stop before heading to the islands." Eisen said as Fafnir jumped off his shoulder and began walking over to the other Originals, who were still trying to figure out some things in here. They sent Eisen off, and then the old man made his way back into the meeting room, where a few people were already waiting for him.

Stahl, Alnico, Kiron, and Komer. They were looking at the door curiously the whole time and were somewhat surprised when Eisen stepped out of it again.

Kiron looked over at Eisen and smiled. "Grandfather, were you inside the Dungeon’s space just now?" He asked before Eisen nodded his head.

"Yeah, I was. It’s nothing special in there yet, and it’s too small to train in right now. I’m about to start working on the Core Guardian to make things a bit easier though, so after that, the Dungeon should grow larger and better at a pretty fast pace, I hope at least." He explained and Komer looked at the old man with eager eyes. "Oh! Yeah, the materials for that are in a special area! There were a few things there I didn’t understand though, but I’m pretty sure the base materials are all there." The young merchant explained, but Stahl and Alnico were looking at Eisen a bit confused.

"What’s a Core Guardian?" The young, green-haired boy asked, and Eisen began to scratch the back of his head. "It’s something similar to a humanoid automaton that can help with different stuff related to all kinds of cores, such as Dungeon, Guild or Town cores. My guess is, for example, that when I make one and link it to the Dungeon Core inside of Fafnir, the Core Guardian is going to be able to expand the dungeon by itself." The old man answered, and Alnico opened her eyes wide.

"Whoa! That’s awesome! Is there any way we can help?" Alnico asked, and the other three looked at Eisen with just-as-hopeful eyes. Eisen could practically see their tails wagging out of excitement, despite them not being Beastpeople.

Slowly, the old man ended up shaking his head. "I doubt you’ll be able to help with the construction itself, sorry. Stahl, Al, you two have like a handful of skills, and none of them are above Rank 1 I imagine. Komer, your production skills are a bit better off already, and although your highest should be magi-craft skills like Alchemy and Enchanting, I’m not sure how much of that is needed with this. Also, I’d prefer it if you kept going with your quest and finish it soon.

And at last, Kiron. You’re not good with detail-oriented stuff like this, which is fine by the way. But it seems like there’s a lot of tiny, intricate parts in the whole body, so I’m not sure how much you could end up helping." He explained, and the group of four immediately hung their heads low.

"But I’m not saying you can’t help at all. I’ll be needing some practice with Glassblowing because I’m pretty sure there were a few glass parts in there. I want to get it to at least Rank 2 before starting with everything, and until then, you’ll probably be able to help out a bit here and there. And I will need help; glassblowing is very delicate." Eisen then added which immediately cheered up the group of teenagers quite a lot, even though Kiron was technically 150 years old.

"Alright! We’ll help with that! What do we need to do?" Stahl asked immediately before Eisen just smiled a bit and looked over to Komer, as he wanted to ask him something first before giving out different roles.

"First, how far are you actually with your Quest?" Eisen asked again, and Komer slowly scratched the back of his head before apparently pulling up an information window and then looked at the old man.

"I have nine more to go, but it’s been getting harder and harder to find new enchantments. I did find out a few things here and there though, so that’s cool, right? It’s going to take a while to finish, though." Komer explained and sat down on the edge of the table.

"That’s fine. Just think about abstract things, maybe not only about causing an actual, physical effect." The old man suggested, and in response, Komer nodded his head as he mentally went through the different Coins of Fate that he created so far, before Eisen continued.

"Alright, I didn’t set a time limit anyway, and because you’re only nine away it shouldn’t take too long anymore anyway once you have some ideas. So, what you guys will be doing is relatively simple. In glassblowing, there are three furnaces. One, just a regular furnace to make the molten glass. Then, the, and I swear to the gods don’t you dare laugh now Stahl, ’Glory Hole’ to keep the temperature of the glass up while working it, and then, at last, the annealer to gradually cool the glass down when you’re done." Eisen explained and looked over at Stahl who still couldn’t hold back at least a bright grin.

"I’ll need at least one person helping me out to make sure I don’t accidentally hit the glass against anything or something. I’m going to be working with it at the end of a long tube so that it might be a bit wobbly. And then maybe if I need any help with the different shaping, I’m going to need someone to hold different tools in place while I work the glass with them. And in case it’s needed, I’m also going to need someone to prepare things like metals for the process of making Fumed Glass, which is the process of capturing the gases from vaporized metals inside of the glass." He explained, and the four of them nodded their heads.

"As for the other things, you’ll all just be carrying stuff around or preparing materials for me to use. I doubt you’ll be able to do much more than that at the moment, sorry." Eisen explained, before looking at Stahl and Alnico.

"By the way, do you know where you want to go stat-wise? Because if so, this might be a good chance to teach you some of the different crafting skills that are supported by those stats. Only if you want, of course." Eisen suggested, and the two of them nodded their heads.

"Alright! I definitely want to do something musical and bard-like, so I’m going to focus on my mental stats as well as my agility, and then a little bit endurance to get my stamina higher. Evalia told me what she needs, " Alnico explained with a grin, so Eisen nodded. "I see. Then that’s going to be things like Alchemy and Enchanting. Maybe a little bit of woodworking if you’re interested in making your musical instruments. You should also focus on learning magic that helps with music in general though because it would be dumb not to, considering your future stat exposition. What about you, Stahl?"

"Hmm, I want all the stats. Like, all of ’em." He said quite straight forward before Eisen chuckled. "All of them? So you want to keep your stats even?"

"Yup. I guess I’ll be an all-rounder. That means I’m always going to be worse than others that focus on it, but I can find some good combinations, right?"

"For sure. As you saw in the Duel between Brody and me before, I didn’t use any combat skills. The only combat skill I have is swordsmanship in the first place. If you manage to integrate anything you do into the other parts, I don’t think you’ll fall behind either. Just think about it, if you know how to use a sword, you can make a better sword. And then, because you know everything about the sword because you made it, you’re going to be able to use it even better." The old man pointed out with a smile before the others swiftly nodded, and Stahl spoke up. "I see... That definitely makes sense!" He answered and grinned as he stemmed his fists on his hips triumphantly for whatever reason, and then pointed toward the door.

"Alright, now let’s go and make this Core Guard!" Stahl yelled out with pure excitement in his voice before Eisen increased his size and stepped forward, placing his hand on his Grandson’s back.

"It’s ’Core Guardian.’ But yeah, let’s go."