Spending My Retirement In A Game

Once more, Parc’s work was quite simple, and he seemed to be struggling with this work much more than with Blacksmithing. He seemed not to be made for this type of tedious, slow and detailed work, although that didn’t mean he wasn’t at least somewhat good at it. The large boy was apparently working on something relatively large, albeit quite simple. It just was a simple bag, and the shape reminded Eisen somewhat of those Ikea bags with the open top.

Then there was Rouge, who seemed to be directly in his element right here. His hands were moving quickly, and he was able to stitch the two halves of the cloth he prepared together quite quickly, but the stitches ended up being a bit too close together and could have used some more space in between them. And since Rouge was making some gloves, that was quite a fatal error. Wider gaps and a different method of stitching would have performed a lot better, but in the end, the gloves were still fine to use.

Next, Koro. He was working on what seemed to be a shirt. Once more, he was taking far too long in between each action, but it already seemed to be a bit better than before. But Eisen’s issue with this right now was the scale of the project, instead. Despite Eisen explicitly saying not to make anything too complicated, Koro began working on a quite complicated shirt, and he was barely three quarters done when Eisen stopped him.

"Alright, stop. You can finish it later if you want, but right now we need to move on." Eisen told Koro before the boy began to slightly freak out, as the old man began to tell Koro, Parc, and Rouge what they did well and wrong again. Of course, they all passed, since they did a great job despite their shortcomings, but Eisen focused primarily on Koro with this one.

"You did a good job, and the habit that I saw while you were blacksmithing didn’t show too much this time, but you shouldn’t overestimate yourself. I gave you a task and a time limit, specifically saying not to do anything too complicated, but you didn’t listen to me and tried to show off." Eisen said in a stern tone before Koro tried to defend himself.

"I-I wasn’t trying to show off, I just thought that I would be able to-" He exclaimed, but was swiftly interrupted by the old Demon. "Quiet. Trying to show off isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but this isn’t a competition. You’re not trying to ’win’ a spot as my apprentice; you’re trying to earn it. And in the end, don’t you think a less complicated item that has been completed would have impressed me more than this?"

"I... I guess... Sorry, I’ll try harder in the next test..." Koro slowly nodded, accepting that he messed up before Eisen looked back at the other two boys as well.

"Next is Leatherworking. Similar to Tailoring in a few aspects, but still very different. Take another break outside for a few minutes, and I’ll call you when you can start." The old man told them before Koro, Parc, and Rouge made their way outside. Kiron and Bree swiftly helped Eisen place the leather onto the table and switch out some of the tools while Sky continued trying to figure out the writing on the side of the box.

After Eisen called the boys again, they quickly got to work at their next items. Parc and Rouge both made things similar to the projects they created during the tailoring task, a leather bag, and a simple leather gauntlet respectively, while Koro worked on something simple to slide the knife into that he made during the Blacksmithing task, although he was now far slower than Eisen had expected. It seemed like he was having problems figuring out what to do, now that he was called out by Eisen.

Koro was getting into his head a lot more than before, but otherwise, his work was quite good. Again, everyone passed, and Eisen pointed out the same issues that everyone had earlier, before telling them to take another break while Eisen prepared everything for the alchemy test.

This time around, Eisen didn’t give them the choice of what to make, since a lot could go wrong with this. The old man told them to start working on a low-grade health potion and watched what happened next. Of course, Eisen still placed decoys around, which only Koro seemed to fall for, albeit only momentarily.

He grabbed something that looked similar to Amran, Milbon. If you made something out of these petals, you would create a poison. It wouldn’t be potent or enough actually to kill you, but it would still drain about 10% of the average person’s health if your endurance were below 100. It was somewhat numbing, so it was sometimes used as a sedative when applied directly to a wound instead of being ingested.

Luckily, though, Koro swiftly noticed his mistake and grabbed the right petals. Everything else went quite well, and the end product that Koro made ended up with a High Quality, as such Eisen couldn’t complain about anything. Since the cause for the mistake was the same one that Eisen already knew about if this one issue was somehow fixed, all of Koro’s crafting would improve significantly.

If Koro had gone so far as to put the Milbon petal into the mortar, Eisen would have told him to stop what he was doing and would have failed him for alchemy. But in the end, the young man managed to notice his mistake on his own within a few moments, so Eisen didn’t see any reason to fail him.

On the other hand, it seemed like Parc overdid it a little, making too much for the small bottle that it was intended for, while Rouge made a slight bit short. They still worked like usual, so Eisen didn’t see any issue with it. After all, they didn’t work with a recipe, but directly from memory and intuition, so such small mistakes weren’t an issue.

Then, Eisen passed them all for Alchemy and let them wait outside again while Eisen prepared three different circular plates made of mana crystals for the enchanting test. And once completed, he called the three boys into the makeshift building once more.

"For the last test, all of you will carve an enchantment. Any enchantment is fine, just don’t do anything crazy, alright. And Koro, you especially, trust in yourself more. Alright, get going now, boys." Eisen told the small group, before handing out the mana crystal plates to them and sending them back to their rooms.

And once more, Eisen began to observe what they were doing, this time starting with Koro, and it seemed like this time around, he was incredibly dedicated and the issues that he was having of getting into his head were mostly gone, so Eisen thought this wouldn’t be an issue and moved on to the other two.

Parc’s enchantment was perfectly fine, maybe a little bit too ’strong,’ as in that the output was a bit too large to be safely used, but that wasn’t an issue of the creation itself, but instead of what Parc wanted to make.

Rouge was working on everything in a lot of detail, as usual, and describing the enchantment with the runic outer circle using a lot of long, detailed sentences with tiny writing. That was fine, and would probably make the enchantment a bit more stable overall, but considering that most simple enchantments like the one Rouge were working on were quite stable in general, so this was unnecessarily wasted time.

"Rouge, try to hurry up a bit. You don’t have too much time left." Eisen pointed out, as he activated his mana sight again to take a look at Rouge’s mana output while he was working on this enchantment when he noticed something weird in Koro’s room.

There was a lot of mana gathered in one spot, and it was changing into a few different colors at once. If this were what Eisen thought it was, then this would be a problem. Especially since the mana began to move unnaturally and uncontrolled, and would probably destroy the enchantment soon. And if that happened, this could be very bad.

Quickly, the old man rushed over to the other room, knocking the wings he was still not used to against the rock walls he created, before looking at the enchantment that he was making with his mana sight, noticing that Koro activated the enchantment despite having not finished it. And there was a more significant issue with that.

"Who told you that you could make a complex enchantment?" Eisen asked with a frown, and an angry voice before Koro slightly jumped back in surprise before the old man ripped the Mythril needle out of Koro’s hand and began to fix the enchantment until it was at least stable, since he couldn’t erase the enchantment.

After adding some more circles around this enchantment that were simply to keep the effect contained and to make sure that no mana would be able to get close to the unfinished complex enchantment, Eisen looked at Koro with a strict expression, pointing to outside of the room, where the other two young boys had soon also gathered.

Eisen crossed his arms and looked at Parc and Rouge first. "You two. Good job. You passed all five of the tests that I had planned for you. You do have some problems with your work, but that’s fine. If you were already perfect craftsmen, you wouldn’t need to be someone’s apprentice." He explained to them before the boys formed happy smiles on their face as some notifications popped up in front of them as well as Eisen, one of them being a regular notification, while the other was the overlayed system kind.

[You have chosen to make someone your apprentice. ’Occupation Trainer’ and ’Skill Trainer’ Titles unlocked]

[Original-Player privilege used to gain ’Trainer’ Titles more easily. Allowed so that the originals can guide other players through the world]

With a smile, Eisen waved the notifications away before two new windows popped up, telling him which occupations he could give to Rouge and Parc.

[Occupations that can be given to Rouge and Parc from you]

-Blacksmith Apprentice

-Tailor Apprentice

-Leatherworker Apprentice

-Alchemist Apprentice

-Enchanter Apprentice

-Craftsman Apprentice

-Magicraftsman Apprentice

After seeing the two notifications, he quickly figured out what the two last occupations were. A regular craftsman seemed to be only meddling in routine, physical tasks like Blacksmithing or tailoring, while a Magicraftsman also worked with Magical skills like alchemy or enchanting. So he knew which person to give what occupations.

But there were still other things that Eisen wanted to reveal to them, so he didn’t offer them the occupations yet. Instead, he turned to Koro. "Now to you. What you did just there was more than just reckless. Who gave you the idea to make a complex enchantment? As I told you before, this is no competition. Koro, you failed my test for Enchanting." He told the young man, who quickly ripped his eyes open widely, trying to argue against the old man’s decision.

"B-But I was just trying to show you that I can do it! This is not fair; I really want to be your apprent..."

"Stop right there. That’s just the thing. You couldn’t do it. You can still become my apprentice, just of a different occupation than those two. Later, I will offer them the opportunity to become Magicraftsman Apprentices, while I will only offer you the opportunity to become a Craftsman Apprentice. While you’re working under me, if you want to earn the right to become a Magicraftsman Apprentice as well, you will prove to me that I can trust you with dangerous creation like that." Eisen explained, before Koro slowly nodded, in a mixture of relief and embarrassment.

Silently, the old man took out his staff from soul storage and changed the layout of the inside of this makeshift building to remove the walls that split it up into multiple rooms, merely placing different workstations into the areas before activating the various skills that he had active while working.

Eisen took out some of his rather unique and rarer materials and fired up his Forge, before reaching under his apron and carving the rune for his blacksmithing skill into his chest with his thumb that he had sharpened up with his element, and then turned to the boys.

"Before you all become my apprentices, here is my first lesson to you. Watch closely."