BXBX NOVEL Chapter 325 - Mana-String
Yesterday during the lessons, it had changed considerably as well, and had become a similar height to the Blacksmith Kobold. It’s fur was a slight red-brown, similar to regular bricks, and its whole body had bulked up although its arms and legs were still able to move quite swiftly with smooth motions.
"So, Sigurd." Eisen then said after he properly took a look at that Kobold again, and the Core Guardian nodded its head with a smile. "Yes?" It asked, and Eisen looked at the screen floating in front of him. "In the options, it says we can now spawn ’Masonry Kobold’s. But you said we can only have five Kobolds at once without them regularly spawning in this area. If possible, it would be great if we could have about five Masonry Kobolds here at once, is there any way?" Eisen inquired, and Sigurd nodded its head immediately before waving its hand, making a small door appear. It was similar to the door that appeared usually leading to the Core Room, just slightly smaller, and the feeling it gave off was pretty different as well.
And after the door opened, Sigurd looked at the Kobolds with a smile. "The four of you without the Masonry skill, get inside there until we call you out again." It told them, and slowly the Kobolds did as said and stepped through the gate, before the door closed shut and the whole thing disappeared again.
"That’s basically a ’Storage Room’ for our monsters. When they’re inside of there, they’re in a whole different space, so we can spawn four more Masonry Kobolds. They won’t be just as proficient as the one we have here, because this one actually learned to reach Rank 1 and they were created with it. That also means that they won’t ever reach its natural proficiency, though." Sigurd pointed out, and Eisen nodded his head with a grin.
"That’s fine, they just need to lay the bricks I gave them." Eisen answered, and Sigurd nodded its head before four more red-brown Kobolds appeared, although they looked slightly different to the one that Eisen had ’created’. The color of their fur wasn’t as prominent, maybe slightly ’washed out’ compared to the original Masonry Kobold, and they were slightly shorter as well.
"Hmm, that makes it easy. You four, this guy here’s your ’Leader’. So listen to him." Eisen exclaimed as he pat the back of the original Masonry Kobold, before explaining what exactly they had to do.
"Big guy, you’re coordinating everything, while these four will each take a wall to work on. When I hand you a brick, you give that to the right Kobold, and hand me a new one, got it? Take this as a bit of practice as well." Eisen explained with a wink before sitting down in the center of the square room and a small pile of stone bricks behind him before taking out his carving needle.
"You all ready?" Eisen asked with a smile, and the ’Leader’ Masonry Kobold nodded excitedly before handing the old man the first brick, which he swiftly began to carve into.
And what he was carving into this was quite simple as well. Five of the brick’s sides were covered in enchantments that would cause all kinds of positive effects like accelerating HP, MP and Stamina regeneration. And then the empty side of the brick was the one that would be on the ’inside’ of the room, so that nobody would be able to tell this place apart from other rooms at least visually.
Considering that the bricks were of magical nature due to being created by the Dungeon-System, that made them a great base for such enchantments, and because Sigurd could perfectly controll this space, and because it had an immense amount of mana in its arsenal, the enchantments could be active constantly while someone was inside of the room.
And most importantly, due to the sheer amount of bricks that would be needed to create the walls, the floor, and the ceiling for a five by five by three meter room, this was the perfect way to gain proficiency in enchanting.
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Another few hours later, Eisen’s part of the task was done. He finished enchanting all of the bricks that could ever be needed within this room, as well as an excess of about 5% just in case something went wrong, and now just needed the Kobolds to finish everything up.
"I have to say, this was the perfect way to practice. The skill is at level 98 now! I’ll surely be able to Rank it up quite soon then." The old man said with a light whistle before checking the time floating in the corner of his sight. "Hmm, I guess I can get started on their bodies already..." He muttered quietly and chose to exit the dungeon and make his way over toward his workshop.
Eisen could have just stayed in the dungeon and worked there, but like this, Fafnir could wake up as nobody was inside of the dungeon, besides those entities belonging directly to it, and on top of that he had all of the materials he might need near his workshop, so he could just go and grab whatever he needed whenever he needed it.
And what Eisen figured to start with first and foremost were the hands, because they included some of the smallest pieces while having a lot of joints, so Eisen could try and figure out how to enchant those joints in the best way. So, with a smile on his face and his monsters following behind him, Eisen summoned his staff and grabbed some steel before creating a forge and anvil with his element, just before he heard a knock at the door.
"Eisen? You in here?" Jyuuk asked as he stepped into the room, carrying a small wooden crate, and the old man nodded his head and swiftly created a small table to place that box down on. "Yeah, you need me for anything?" He asked, but Jyuuk juts shook his head with a smile.
"I don’t particularly need you to do anything, I just wanted to give you something. Xenia and I sat down together and started working on an item for you, although just some rough parts of it. We didn’t know what exactly you wanted to make with it, or how you wanted the machine to look like, so... Here are the parts?" Jyuuk said with a wry smile as he uncovered the crate, revealing a few parts that the old man recognized pretty well, as well as a bunch of crystal structures surrounding them.
"Hmm, the Silk Glands and Spinnerets from the Mother of Spiders?" Eisen asked surprised and Jyuuk nodded his head with a grin. "Mhm! We figured out how to make use of them. So, there are the spinnerets meant to make thread for webmaking, one being sticky the other being normal." Jyuuk explained before grabbing two of the spinnerets and setting them down on the table, before turning them around and showing Eisen a complex enchantment on each of them.
"So, this enchantment here lets you define the output. Don’t know how it works, but you can just pour your mana into it and then think about what you want it to be. For the sticky thread you can choose how sticky it is as well, like you can also actually make it to be a normal thread, but in general you can choose just how thick it is or how strong it is. There are two of each of these here. Then there are two spinnerets that let you define a crystal or gem material to turn into thread, two spinnerets to do the same with non-crystal materials, two spinnerets that will turn mana and elemental mana into thread, and at last two spinnerets that... well, we couldn’t figure out what they do yet, actually... But maybe you can!" Jyuuk exclaimed with a smile after grabbing each of the spinnerets out of the box one after another, and Eisen slowly nodded his head with a grin on his face.
"Interesting... But wait, did you say non-crystal materials?" Eisen asked surprised, and Jyuuk nodded his head with a smile. "Mhm! Wait, let me show you... Erm, can I use this chunk of steel?" Jyuuk asked, and Eisen just slowly nodded his head before the beastperson grabbed the small steel nugget that was laying on the table before holding it against the enchantment at the back of the small box that they had constructed around the spinnerets.
And before Eisen knew it, Jyuuk was pulling steel-thread out of the tip of the spinneret! Curiously, Eisen took the metallic thread into his hands and twisted it around his fingers, pulling on it to see what it was like, before grinning broadly.
"This isn’t just thin steel... This is both thread and steel... This is great!" Eisen exclaimed with a smile on his face as he looked at the small item in Jyuuk’s hands, "How does it work, even?" He asked, and Jyuuk just scratched the back of his neck with a smile and began to explain.
"Each of these boxes has a bit of the Silk-Glands inside of them directly connected to the Spinnerets. Each Silk Gland has actually been specialized toward the task that the specific spinneret has as well. Anyway, the enchantment basically replaces the process of taking the material apart and feeds it to the silk gland, which turns it into a special version of the material throught the magical attributes set inside of it, and then hands the special version of the material-silk to the spinneret, which gives it its form. We kind of got the idea from the Spinning-Wheel you have to make magic string." Jyuuk pointed out, and Eisen nodded his head with a laugh.
"I see! Well, thank you for this! This should actually come in pretty handy!" Eisen explained, and then next grabbed one of the boxes with the spinneret that could turn mana into thread. "So... this one here can make mana-string?" He asked curiously, and Jyuuk nodded his head with a wry smile.
"Yeah, but it can’t be used just when made of pure mana... I mean, you can make it, but the string will just phase through everything. And it just barely registers as your own mana... Xenia managed to slightly make it shake, but that’s it." The Beastperson pointed out, but Eisen just shook his head.
"Oh no, if it’s like I think it is, then this is actually really amazing..." Eisen muttered to himself before pouring his mana into the input-enchantment, and on the other side of the small box a bit of floating string appeared out of basically nowhere.
And then, Eisen placed his finger to his left earring and pulled out a small needle, before grabbing the end of the thread and pulling it through the hole in the needle, and Jyuuk looked at him surprised. "Wait, you can move it?" He asked, and Eisen nodded his head with a grin. "Mhm, Mana-String is like that, you just need to infuse your mana into your finger-tips and then slightly pull it along. It’s a pain in the ass to use, but when you can manage to, it’s actually one of the best materials I could ask for at the moment." Eisen explained with a smile before he removed his fingers from the string and then placed them against the needle instead, before pulling them away from there as well, revealing a small completely white needle made of mana.
And after placing the needle back into his left earring, Eisen grabbed two small plates of steel, completely ignoring the fact that Jyuuk was trying to ask him something.
With a few swift motions accompanied by a broad grin, Eisen moved the mana-needle with the mana-string through the steel as if sewing two pieces of cloth together, and when he was done, the needle disappeared and he snapped the end of the string apart by just pulling at it.
Smiling broadly, Eisen then held the two plates of steel forward, trying to pull them apart in front of Jyuuk. "See? With Mana-String, you can basically sew anything together. I used to know this one kid, he was an apprentice at a Tailor back in the day and kept trying to use magic to somehow help his work. Then he got an element to make mana-string, and broke off his apprenticeship at the tailor to become an adventurer. The next time I saw him, he sewed the bodies of two High-Ogres together and-" Eisen explained with a nostalgic expression on his face, but before he could finish his story, Jyuuk grasped his arm, and at the same moment, Eisen was overcome with dizziness as he could feel his heart beat throughout his whole body. His fingers, his feet, even his nose felt so much more sensitive for some reason.
It was good that this extended toward his ears as well, so he could hear Jyuuk’s whispered-questions as loud as if he yelled it in his ear, meaning he had no chance to overhear it. "What are you talking about? How do you know all that?"