BXBX NOVEL Chapter 338 - Letter of Recommendation
He knew how easy it was to get bitter about such things, especially for people as young as Koro, and Eisen wanted him to take this as one of the harshest lessons in his life. Koro could have seriously injured or even killed someone there, and that just wasn’t alright in the slightest, especially because he didn’t seem to understand what exactly he did wrong initially.
Eisen really hoped that he would be able to make him understand nonetheless that this shouldn’t stop Koro from pursuing a passion like this, just that he should never make such a mistake ever again. He would wish him luck in life, and then Eisen would move on.
It wasn’t the first time that he had to let an apprentice go, and this wasn’t actually the harshest way that he did so. One time, back when Eisen was actually still taking apprentices, he would teach them in his workshop at home, and one of the young men tried to break into Eisen’s basement.
At the time, Eisen didn’t have access to such high-tech security systems yet, so the apprentice managed to get in, although he seemed to be rather disappointed at the fact that there was nothing but alcohol down there. He probably figured it was some kind of treasure vault filled with expensive materials, and began to freak out when he found that this wasn’t the case at all.
And of course, people that freak out make mistakes, and the apprentice did the mistake of running into some freshly-bottled bottles of Whiskey and breaking them. One of Eisen’s other apprentices, who was currently on break and getting some water from the Kitchen, overheard the sound and let Eisen know. Of course, Eisen didn’t hesitate to throw his apprentice out head-first either, because this just wasn’t alright.
Many of his apprentices over the years were pretty rough in their attitude, often getting angry or just being far too careless. Some of his later apprentices were actually Tony’s friends from his gang, who Eisen saw to not be bad kids and chose to take in for a little while and bring them up to their feet as productive members of society.
Many ended up being quite troublesome in the long run, but overall, they treated Eisen with respect and never went so far as to try and exploit him, with some exceptions of course.
"Hmm, I should try and see if I can call some of them together again. I wonder, would they be able to afford capsules these days?" Eisen wondered to himself, trying to think about what he remembered his apprentices being up to lately, before shrugging with a smirk. "Yeah, I guess I shouldn’t worry about that, they all ended up pretty successful, huh...?" He chuckled to himself as a slight feeling of nostalgia overcame him once he stood in front of the door, on the other side of which Eisen would be able to find Koro.
Slowly, the old man unlocked the door and stepped inside. Immediately, he could see Koro squatting in the corner, simply pulling his knees up to his chest silently. He looked at Eisen for a moment, before his eyebrows immediately tilted toward the center of his face in anger.
With a sigh, Eisen stepped further inside and sat down on the ground in front of Koro before crossing his arms. "Be angry all you want, but you and I both know that you’re the one that messed up." The old man pointed out, but he could simply see some of the muscles on Koro’s arms tense up, probably in even more anger.
Just so slowly, with a calm state of mind, Eisen closed his eyes and activated his demonic transformation. Whenever he was crafting, he just activated it without a single thought, and it seemed to just turn into his regular old base transformation. But when Eisen was angry and trying to be intimidating with his Demonic Transformation active, it seemed to slightly change. The flames all over his body seemed to be come darker, while the golden parts on his body did the same, as if becoming ’Dirty’. His wings seemed more like they used to before, far more rugged and edged, and in general, his body seemed to just give off an energy of ’Anger’.
This became especially apparent to Eisen when he was yelling at Koro before. It was probably because Eisen was more connected to his Demonic side now compared to a few weeks ago, but he just hadn’t really noticed this all that much before that time.
But if it was possible to turn more toward an angry ’Yin’ side, it should be able to turn more toward a calm, happy ’Yang’ side as well. And with his current state of mind, Eisen hoped that it was enough to get there. After all, if his Yin side was able to scare people more easily, his Yang side should be able to lift other peoples’ moods again.
Slowly, the old man looked at his body and noticed a few changes, of which some were more noticable than ever. It seemed as if the golden flames inbetween the cracks in Eisen’s skin were now actually somewhat metallic in nature, weirdly enough, and there were a few metallic golden lines running through the rock he had as skin in his demonic form.
And as for his wings, which Eisen could only really see from the corner of his eye, the old man noticed that they seemed ’Softer’, even if they were a bit bulkier compared to before. In general, they started to seem slightly more as if they were about to grow feathers and turn into an Angel’s wings.
There was probably a little change to Eisen’s eyes and his horns as well, but he really wasn’t in a situation where he wanted to check on that.
Carefully, Eisen then extended his hand forward toward Koro and placed it on the young man’s shoulder. "Koro, I know that you’re probably feeling pretty lost right now, but please, just try and understand what exactly happened." Eisen said with a light smile, before Koro slowly turned back toward Eisen, and his sight became softer and calmer.
"You created something that put yourself and your friends in danger. You could have really, really hurt yourself to a point where you may be unable to continue working in these crafts, Koro." Eisen explained, and slowly, the young man nodded his head before hiding his face behind his knees again.
"And I know that you realize that you went wrong somewhere. After all, otherwise you could have just used transmutation to open the door. It was just a small latch, not even a proper lock, so you could have done so easily." Eisen pointed out, before Koro just somewhat nodded again, and Eisen slowly began to smile.
"This is not the end for you, Koro. You can still continue working as a craftsman, you just won’t learn how to do so from me..." The old man explained with a smile, before getting another idea, which he would be actually quite happy with. "Have you ever heard of Melroe before, Koro?" He asked, but Koro quietly shook his head, so Eisen replied with a chuckle.
"I figured so. It’s an amazing town, but it’s in the Dwarven country and pretty far away from Handor. There are some pretty amazing craftsmen there as well, and one of them is a rather chaotic Magicraftsman, specialized on making heavily enchanted tools, potions, and even toys. You seem to be similarly chaotic, so you might be able to learn from him better than you can learn from me." Eisen explained, before rubbing over Koro’s head.
"If you do well there, then who knows, I might be willing to have you come back and work with us on the islands, but you seem to have a pretty tough time listening to what I have to say. Maybe it will work better there." Eisen suggested before standing up with a smile, preparing to leave again, "When we get to the islands and the first ship departs, I’ll send you back to the mainland with it, together with a letter of reccomendation and enough money to get you to Melroe. I’m sure you’ll do well there." Eisen told Koro and then opened the door again, slowly stepping out before closing and locking the door behind him, actually rather happy with the idea he came up with for a reason different to the one he just pointed out.
"And there’ll be an ancient dragon that can see through any type of lie who I’m quite well acquainted with. Let’s hope he agrees to keep an eye on you as well, huh?" Eisen whispered to himself with a light chuckle before making his way through the interior of the ship again, heading to another place for now. He seemed to have figured out how to turn into a ’Yang’ Demon, so if Xenia managed to prepare everything for the Blessings, then they should be able to attempt to create a ’Mass of Yang’ now. Of course, Eisen made sure that he didn’t have anything else that he had to do for the rest of the day, because he wouldn’t be able to do all that much with one arm less than usual. Something that he actually managed to figure out pretty well during the past few years, and especially during the past few days.
Swiftly, Eisen stepped into Xenia’s research room, which was pretty much just a private storage from the looks of it, because it was packed to the brim with numerous different books, crystals, wands, and other items even just remotely connected to her work.
And inside, Eisen could see Xenia together with Supp and Croco, where Xenia was trying to teach them about what they had to do, although she seemed rather confused about something at the moment.
With a smile on his face, Eisen moved further into the room, and the young High-Elf quickly noticed him. She seemed rather surprised at the fact that he came in with his Demonic Transformation activated, although she quickly moved on toward what seemed to be troubling her. "Eisen! I meant to talk to you, other than enchanting the items with specific skills, did you teach them anything yet? Like, anything at all?" Xenia asked, but Eisen immediately shook his head rather confused.
"Nothing, why are you asking? Is something wrong?" He inquired, but Xenia just began to smirk as she slowly shook her head. "Nothing’s wrong! This is great, actually! My guess it’s part of that