BXBX NOVEL Chapter 261 Silk Spinner
"Yeah, it kind of is, huh?" He answered, before Sky took a closer look at all the materials stacked on top of each other. "You can surely make a lot of stuff with this, right?" Sky asked, and the old man immediately nodded his head.
"Actually, I’m sure I can. I noticed it before already, but these carapaces are a little weird, or rather, they’re not directly what I expected. They somehow act pretty metallic." He explained, and now Kiron answered to the old man’s curiousity. "Ah yes, that is how many bug-type monster carapaces are, isn’t it?"
"Is it? I never actually managed to get my hands on any, so I don’t directly know. It just seems a little weird to me in my head." The old man answered before grabbing all the carapace-pieces and putting them to the side, because he wanted to take them to his workspace later where he could start experimenting with them.
"Hmm... I’ll have to talk to Jyuuk and Xenia about the eyes later... I don’t know to what extent the different parts of them can be used..." The old man said deep in thought, before he then took a look at the Silk gland and the Spinnerets, which were also somewhat metallic in nature, although they also had a few crystal aspects to them, and obviously also the regular biological parts. But either way, Eisen already knew what he wanted to do with these, and as such he grabbed those parts as well and handed them to Bree, who was eager to help out again.
"Alright, let’s bring these materials downstairs, alright?" Eisen suggested before he grabbed a big pile of the carapace pieces and Kiron swiftly did the same, while Sky grabbed some of the lighter, smaller parts. They had to go up and down the stairs a few times to bring everything into the material storage, but soon enough they had everything properly stored.
"And what are you going to do now?" Bree asked curiously, before Eisen winked at them and made his way to his workspace. Stahl, Komer and Alnico already told Eisen that they wouldn’t end up helping this time around, so it would now end up being a different group, with Bree watching the old man work for the first time in quite a while.
"For now, I’m going to finish an item that I promised to give to Xenia." Eisen said and then swiftly stepped over to the box where he placed the Mana-Sight lenses as well as the thin Mythril-Parts. "It won’t take long, though, I only really need to put everything together and fine-tune some things." He explained, before making some seats for everyone with his element as well as a table where he layed out all the different parts.
First, Eisen set together the different mythril parts to make the base for the glasses. He carved some enchantments onto the side so that any mana that would be poured into any part of the mythril would immediately be supplied to the lenses, which he then worked on next.
Eisen swiftly shaped the lenses into the right size and shape with his exacto-knife that he made for leatherworking and tailoring back then, for which he made a few mythril blades to put in. Some of those blades were specifically enchanted to help with transmutation, so that Eisen could easily cut through things like glass, which you normally wouldn’t be able to cut through with a regular knife. He then rounded the edges with some sandpaper, going from roughest to smoothest so that the glass wouldn’t end up scratched up in any place, while also using this chance to adjust the fine details so that the lenses would sit perfectly and tight in the mythril frame.
And then, around the edges, Eisen carved a thin, simple enchantment that you wouldn’t be able to see while looking through the lenses regularly, just to further enhance the visual aspects of the ability enchantment that was placed on the lenses.
"Alright, done." Eisen exclaimed with a satisfied smile, before the notification with the item’s information immediately popped up in front of him.
[Mana Spectacles]
[Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3]
[Description] A pair of glasses made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. The glasses have been enchanted to allow a clear sight of Mana in exchange for the regular colors seen throughout the world. It has a mythril frame, making it quite light and durable, as well as easy to use with little mana.
[Effect] <Mana-Sight> Ability; +10 INT, +10 WIS
[Requirements] 50 INT; 50 WIS;
With a slow nod, Eisen swiftly tried looking through the lenses while pouring mana inside of it, and soon saw the clear view that he had through the lenses before turn black-and-white, while a few mist different colors could be seen all around belonging to the natural environment and different people on board of this ship.
"Perfect. Alright, I’ll message Xenia to come down here while I work on a small etui for the glasses." Eisen told the others as he placed the glasses down to the side and grabbed a small piece of wood before starting to carve away at it. And a mere minute later, Xenia already ripped the door to the room open.
"You finished the item you wanted to make for me?" She asked excitedly, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head. "Yup, here they are. A whole new pair of proper, easy to use Mana Spectacles." Eisen told her and reached over to grab them, but it seemed like Xenia was a bit quicker.
"Oh, these look pretty nice! But the lenses aren’t crystals, right?" Xenia asked as she swiftly tried them on, and the old man nodded his head. "Yeah, they aren’t. I enchanted a Mana Crystal with the Mana-Sight ability, then ground that down and added it to a mixture of materials for making glass. Those lenses are made with that glass. I have some more of those lenses just in case, so if they should break, crack or scratch up, just let me know." The old man explained as he continued to carve the small wooden etui that the thin glasses could fit into while Xenia wasn’t using them.
"You can do that?" Xenia asked a bit surprised, and the old man nodded his head. "Yeah, you can. It’s the same principle as alchemy, isn’t it? I did the same with Fafnir’s scales, actually." Eisen explained as he looked over at the small living dungeon in the shape of a dragon, and the High-Elf slowly nodded.
"Hmm, I didn’t think about that all that much yet, but you’re right... If organic and inorganic materials can be mixed through alchemy, then it makes sense to mix inorganic and inorganic materials with other skills as well..." She muttered to herself, thinking about some kind of magic theory again, before she noticed that everyone was staring at her. "Oh, sorry! I was working on another project and I was getting stuck on an issue, but I think I have a pretty good idea on how to solve the problem now! So thanks, Eisen! For the glasses and that tip." Xenia said with a smile, and Eisen nodded at her.
He was glad that she had finally warmed up to him, she was just as Cynical at the beginning as Zyra constantly was, after all. But lately, Eisen really didn’t notice any of that. Just when Eisen was thinking that, Xenia turned around and wanted to leave, but the old man swiftly stopped her.
"Wait just a second, I have something else for you." Eisen said, holding up the small square box he was currently cutting in half horizontally, before Xenia looked at him and tilted her head to the side. "And what is that?" She asked curiously, but Eisen just chuckled.
"It’s nothing special, just an etui. I doubt you want to wear those glasses constantly, after all. So just put them in here while you don’t need them." Eisen suggested, before Xenia slowly nodded her head, really appreciating the thougthfullness that Eisen showed to her.
Swiftly, Eisen finished cutting the box in two parts and then ’hollowed’ both of those parts out so that there was actually enough space for the glasses, and then glued some simple cloth onto the inside so that nothing would scratch anything up. Then, the old man just added a simple latch and a small hinge, and then handed the etui to Xenia.
"It’s pretty simple right now, I’m not necessarily the most artistically talented person there is. You can surely ask Evalia to fancy it up a bit though." Eisen suggested, and Xenia slowly nodded her head with a light smile. "Sure, I will. Thank you for this." She replied and quietly turned around before making her way out of the room, keeping the glasses on her face.
"What was that about?" Sky asked a bit confused, but Eisen just looked at him with a frown. "What do you mean? That I made the glasses and etui for her?" He asked, but the Fey-kin boy shook his head. "No, no, not that. Doesn’t matter, just continue with whatever you wanted to do next." Sky reassured, and the old man swiftly nodded his head.
"Alright, I probably should do that then." The old man said before grabbing the two materials, or rather parts, that he really wanted to figure out now, for which he swiftly called Jyuuk down to the workspace.
"Yes, can I help?" The Monkey Beastperson asked with a smile, and Eisen nodded his head, before showing him the parts he wanted to work with. "Huh, are those the Silk Glands and the Spinnerets?" Jyuuk asked surprised, before Eisen once more nodded.
"Mhm, yes. I would like to turn this into something like a silk-string spinner. Maybe somehow combine it with the principle behind the spinning wheel that I use to make magic string so that I can feed it different materials for different effects, but I’m not sure how exactly I should go about this. Do you think I’ll need necromancy for it?" The old man inquired, and after a little bit of thinking, Jyuuk nodded.
"You might, yes. How these work is actually quite simple, the silk glands produce the protein mixture, which is the actual silk, in a liquid form. Then after a small acid bath, the spinnerets give it an actual use. You know how spiderwebs work, right?" Jyuuk asked and Eisen nodded his head, but Caria swiftly raised her hand. "Uncle Jyuu, Caria and Melly don’t know!" She exclaimed, so not being able to resist such a cutie, the Beastperson went ahead and explained it.
"Ah, of course! You see, different prey for the spider gets stuck in the web, right? But the spider can actually move around it without an issue. Many people might think that spiders just don’t get stuck to their own silk, but that’s not really true. Some of the silk is sticky, and some isn’t, the spiders just remembers which are safe to walk on. So they practically make themselves a simple, safe path. The different silk for those areas is made in these things here, the spinnerets." Jyuuk explained to the two little girls who listened curiously, and then moved on to talking to everyone again, because this was probably not something that everyone necessarily knew.
"Each of the Spinnerets has a different task. One makes the safe silk for webs, another one the sticky silk. Then there’s one that makes silk to trap prey, and so on. Those tasks are predefined by the general structure. At least that’s the case with regular spinnerets of Spider Monsters I’ve inspected so far, but these... are pretty unique..." Jyuuk pointed out as he took a closer look, and Eisen looked at him surprised.
"Unique? In what way exactly now?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk swiftly answered. "Well, the semi-metallic outer layer is the first, but that was already the case with the general carapacial structure, so that wasn’t necessarily too much of a surprise. What I think is unique here mostly is, beside the large number of a total of twelve while most species of spiders only have around four or six, the fact that it has these crystals inside. That wasn’t the case even with a species of spider I dissected that was known for wielding Silk-Magic."