BXBX NOVEL Chapter 252 The Transcended
"Yeah, and that’s going to be pretty hard... Although I think there is an island where we’re going that has a lot of it. The Fairy Forest I’m from is on another continent, so going there for Maroon isn’t the best idea." The Fey-Kin boy told them, and Eisen continued moving his fingers through his beard. "It’s fine if we don’t get it immediately. I can prepare any parts for the Core Guardian that don’t need Margon, and then finish it when we get our hands on it." After the old man answered this, he took another look at the 3D representation of the blueprint, which was created with the help of his ’Crafter’s Mind’ skill, trying to filter out any parts that need Margon. That still left him with around 95% of the whole build, as not necessarily a lot of Margon was required, only for the most central parts of the entire structure.
"But if it’s on the islands, that’s perfect." The old man added at last, before scratching his chin with a smile. "I guess I’ll get to work on the other parts until we get to the next harbor then. And over the next few days, I’ll start working on everybody’s items."
"Ooh, nice! So you’ll start working on my staff then as well?" Xenia excitedly asked but was swiftly disappointed when Eisen shook his head. "Sorry, I’ll work on those items last. I want to Rank my Enchanting skill up once more so that I can use other people’s abilities so that we can create materials perfectly fitting with your element." He answered, and the High-Elf loudly sighed as she hung her head low, although she did understand the logic in that. Either way, Eisen wanted to cheer her up a bit. "But don’t worry, I have another item for you that I’ll get to in a bit. Should be ready this evening at the latest."
As Eisen said this, Xenia’s face immediately lit up with curiosity and excitement, so the old man could only reply with a light chuckle and then looked at the High-Elf and the Fey-Kin again. "Thanks for the help, you two. If you need anything, just let me know, and I’ll get right to it." Eisen said before he turned around and once more made his way back to his workspace, where those that were watching him work before were already waiting for him to come back.
"Sorry for the wait, everyone. I’ll continue now. So, for now, we can’t continue the glassblowing. There’s a material that’s needed for the rest of the glass parts as well as some other parts of the Core Guardian’s Body which we don’t have, which is pretty hard to get our hands on. So for now, until we reach the stopping point at the harbor today, I’m going to make some of the other parts. Do you still want to help?" Eisen asked Kiron, Stahl, and Alnico, as the Half-Dragon and Alnico swiftly nodded their heads, while Stahl just kept sitting silently in the corner, before he slowly shook his head.
"Well, that’s fine, then. You’re free to watch, but you can also go and do something else if you want. If you do, just meet me at the main deck when we get to the harbor, yeah?" Eisen asked, and Stahl sighed quietly.
"Nah, that’s fine, I’ll stay here. I just don’t feel like helping out right now, sorry." He answered as he began to fidget with a part of his green hair that was sticking out over his eyes before his grandfather smiled at him.
"That’s totally fine. For now, I think it would be best to work on the metallic skeleton. It’s simply made out of Steel and enchanted as far as I can tell from the blueprints. That’s going to take a little while, just because of the number of parts we need. Overall, I won’t need too long to make each part, but the steel will go through tempering. After I’m done with each part, I’ll place it into the tempering oven. You two, please take care of taking the steel out of that tempering oven, as well as preparing the next material to work with." Eisen began to explain as he stepped out the door of the workshop and began to make his way to the material storage with Kiron and Alnico in tow before the young girl chose to ask a question.
"And what does that ’preparing the next material’ mean exactly?" She asked, just so that she could adequately help out, and Eisen just smiled. "That just means that I want you to place the metal into the forge at the right time. It takes a few minutes to heat up, and obviously, it’s faster for smaller parts than it is for bigger parts, so keep that in mind, yeah?" Eisen asked the two of them before they nodded in unison and followed Eisen into the Material storage-room, where the old man swiftly stepped over to a large amount of steel that was prepared.
After telling them how much of what size to take and bringing them to the workspace again, and then bringing some of the ingots back to the material storage and switching them out with actual steel as Kiron had grabbed a few cast-iron ingots by accident, Eisen was ready to start with the skeleton. It was humanoid for the most part, although the dimensions showed that the whole Core-Guardian would end up only about 1 meter tall. In response to Eisen telling that to the others, Kiron took a look at the Blueprints and turned to the old man in surprise.
"Grandfather, if the Core-Guardian is truly only about a meter tall, then I think this has been created in the image of Halti," Kiron said with a smile before the old man looked at him with a bit of confusion. "Halti, what are those?" He curiously asked, and Kiron swiftly began to explain while Eisen changed the crucible into a proper forge and the Annealer into a tempering oven while making the glory hole disappear.
"Halti are creatures of the Underdark. There aren’t many of them, but they can be found in some of the Underdark’s ruins. They have a lifespan of about 1000 years, and they are usually subordinate to strong people and protect areas of importance for them until they die, even after their Master’s death. Most of them are incapable of common speech, although mainly that’s because they forgot how to. And I’m pretty sure that the Core Guardian is in their image. They are somewhat gnome-like in size, although they have proportions not too dissimilar to simply shrunken-down humans, albeit with a slightly larger head and hands." Kiron explained as he placed the Blueprints back down onto the table before Eisen slowly nodded.
"Halti, huh? Interesting." Eisen muttered to himself as he placed the first ingot into the forge to heat it, before turning to Kiron again. "But what is the Underdark? I haven’t heard of it before." He asked, and Alnico and Stahl listened just as curiously.
"Ah, the Underdark is a giant cave the size of a continent, quite literally so. It’s underneath the continent western to this one and spans almost every meter of it. Not only is the Flora unique to any other place, but it has incredibly unique monsters there, and it has different weather as well. There’s a volcanic region with flowing magma hundreds of times hotter than regular magma directly next to an area made up of frozen glaciers that don’t melt no matter what heat they are exposed. It is the harshest area on this planet, and the one civilization that used to live there is now extinct, with the only residue of them being the ruins, some of the monsters, as well as creatures like the Halti." Kiron explained before he ran his fingers over his scaled neck. "Although because the environment itself is so harsh, there are creatures there that are even stronger than ancient dragons, believe it or not."
And after Kiron said this, Eisen was more than a bit confused. "What do you mean? I thought Ancient Dragons are Rank 10, is there anything higher than that?"
"There is one stage above it, yes. But you have to be aware, a Rank 10 monster at level 1 is only about as strong as a level 600 person, while a Rank 10 Monster at Level 99 is about as strong as a level 800 person. And the stage beyond that can only be beaten by five that peaked, like you. My father actually reached that stage. Once a monster reaches the limit of their body, they end up Transcendent, and nearly all limits are taken off their body. As my father did so with his mind and morals intact, he was allowed to ascend to godhood, but there are barely any that are capable of doing so." Kiron explained before he wrily smiled at the old man.
"There are actually only six of them on this planet, one on each continent including the Underdark, although they were sealed up in the past so that they cannot roam around." He added at last, and Eisen nodded at him with a smile. "Interesting. I didn’t know about that, thank you, Kiron." The old man said, excited about finding out something like this before he noticed that the ingot he put into the Forge already heated enough.
Eisen grabbed the bright yellow ingot and placed it onto the forge with the tongs and began to hammer onto it while thinking about the different materials that could be acquired from monsters like that, while Kiron swiftly placed the next ingot into the forge so that Eisen had something to work on once he was finished.
While Eisen imagined the might of such monsters, Alnico chose to ask more about them, which Eisen wasn’t opposed. In the past, he was always relatively interested in things like class mythology, meaning that he did know a bit about it here and there, but when he started playing this game, his interest just grew a hundredfold!
Especially after Caria and Melissa hatched out of their eggs and began to evolve, Eisen didn’t pass on a chance to hear more such stories about things that even he had never seen or heard of in his life.
"And do you know what those monsters are like?" Al asked curiously, and Kiron thought about it for a little while, before shaking his head. "I do not; it has been a while since they have been sealed, after all. The only thing that is currently known about them is that each of them takes after one of the basic elements. The Transcendent of Darkness is in the Underdark, which was part of the reason why it was named as such, and the Transcendent of Light is on top of it in the western continent. The Northern continent has the transcendent of water, the southern has the one of fire, the eastern the transcendent of air, and the central continent has the transcendent of earth, the youngest and overall weakest of all of them." The half-dragon explained, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in excitement, because he really couldn’t wait for the time where the players were strong enough to take such monsters on.