Spending My Retirement In A Game

Eisen and Bree made their way out of Jekyll’s Hides for the day. On their way out, Eisen was stopped by Jekyll so that he could take a look at the leather apron. Just like Denmir and Folmirra, Jekyll ws quite shocked to see that Eisen seemingly so easily broke through the limits of his skill, especially considering the leather he was using.

But in the end, Jekyll simply looked really tired and waved both of them out of the shop. He did talk to Denmir and Folmirra, after all. They probably told Jekyll about Eisen breaking the limits of two skills already, so he might have been expecting it to an amount, but was still surprised to actually see it happen.

Either way, Eisen and Bree simply made their way over to the Inn again, and Eisen quickly paid for a room to bring all of his items there before eating. After setting them down and finally having his hands free, Eisen left his room again. To his surprise, he noticed a young man standing at the end of the corridor, looking out of his room. But when he noticed that Eisen saw him, he immediately panicked and pulled his head back.

Trying to ignore this, since there wasn’t a simple way to find out what this was all about, Eisen locked his room and stepped down the stairs, walking toward the restaurant. After enjoying a nice Dinner with Bree, both of them continued talking for a while, although mostly about unimportant and casual things.

About an hour later, they said goodnight and Eisen made his way back to his room. This time, after turning the corner to his room, he saw the young man from before standing in front of the door to Eisen’s room.

He looked to be about twenty years old, his skin was dark, and he had pointy ears like an elf. Eisen looked up some things about the fantasy game genre, just to build up his general knowledge a bit more, and from what he could tell this young man was a Dark Elf. His body was quite scrawny, and he was wearing dark blue clothes bordering on black that made it easy to hide in the shadows.

Again, the young man immediately reacted when he saw Eisen and ran off before the old man had any chance to react. "What was that about?" Eisen muttered to himself and shook his head. He would need to be more careful, since it seems like there could be thieves targeting him and his possessions even in this game.

Eisen stepped into his room and locked the door behind himself. First, Eisen checked all of his belongings to make sure the young man didn’t manage to steal anything. Luckily, everything seemed to still be there, so Eisen sighed loudly and sat down on his bed.

"I really need to figure out a place I can put all of these. I can’t just carry all of this stuff around with me all the time. And I definitely can’t leave them in here..."

Eisen sighed and shook his head, lying down in the bed while he thought of how to go forward with everything. Once he made a carriage, most things would be taken care of while he’s travelling. He would have a place to sleep, somewhere to put all his items, and probably also enough space to craft some items. But then there would be the problem of security. After all, Eisen couln’t just bring the carriage everywhere when he was hunting outside, and leaving it alone would be a dumb thing to do. There could be thieves roaming around everywhere, and Eisen didn’t want to risk losing all of his items.

Maybe he would be able to find some kind of magical way to make sure his items won’t be stolen. Of course he could always fortify the carriage with steel to make sure it’s not easily broken into, but since this is a fantasy world, Eisen wanted to take advantage of every single opportunity to make great items with the help of Magic.

He already did so with his own Zweihänder, as he infused it with Magic while making it, and with Bree’s Dress, which he created from something that is basically a purely magical substance.

Obviously there were different ways to work with magic, and Eisen was sure he wasn’t aware of the big majority of them.

However, he hoped to find out more about Magic when he would start working with Morrom two days later. But that would also mean he only had a single day left to finish Bree’s backpack, as well as his leather armor, as well as some shoes. Although the shoes were the thing that could probably wait the longest. There might actually be a designated shoemaker in Melroe, so going there might be the best idea, and that could wait until after Eisen finished his time at Everything Magic.

For now, maybe it would be a good idea to practice his Mana Manipulation. The higher it is before he starts with Alchemy and Enchanting, the easier he should be able to master those skills.

Eisen sat back up and thought about what to do first. Maybe he could try forming things with his mana, and heighten it that way. But he simply wasn’t sure what he should form. Some kind of item? Maybe an animal? Or maybe he could copy something off his own body again. Or maybe...

Eisen concentrated and looked into himself, concentrating his mana in his center, turning it into the sphere he was used to. But this time, instead of going the long was through his arm, he thought maybe he could push it out through his chest immediately.

He first split the mana up into two spheres, and carefully moved one of them forward, pushing it out of his body. Eisen felt a light stinging as his mana left his body through his chest. Carefully, he let the mana in his body expand again, and fully concentrated on the mana floating in front of him. Right now, it was like a strongly concentrated substance, so he slowly let it expand and grow, until it was a sphere with a 1,5 meter diameter. It wasn’t nearly as dense at it was before, of course, and quite hard to move around at all. However, just because it wasn’t as dense, it was far softer than before, and much easier to work with.

First, eisen roughly shaped the mana into a humanoid shape, a smaller sphere as a head, a big oval as a torso, and four long tubes with squares at the end to act as arms and legs each.

Now that he had a base to work with, Eisen carefully inspected the mana inside of him, that naturally filled out every single inch of his body. Step by step, he added details to the Doll made of mana, copying his own body, until something stood in front of him which he was happy with. Sure, it didn’t have all details. It only had the rough body shape, similar to the Mannequin that Eisen saw during character creation, just with a few simple differences. First, it was definitely Eisen’s body. Although it didn’t have his scars or complexities, if you knew what his body looked like, you could recognize him from looking at the mana copy.

The hands and feet were just roughly in the shape of them, without toes or fingers or anything like that. The Copy only roughly had parts that one might recognize as hair or a beard, but one could definitely see them as such.

Eisen looked the copy up and down, and that was when he got some notifications, showing that what he did actually had a consequence.

[Mana Copy Library expanded] Giant-Dwarf Halfling (Incomplete)

[Mana Copy of Giant-Dwarf Halfling (Incomplete) grew by absorbing the copies Giant-Dwarf Hand and Giant-Dwarf Heart]

Immediately, Eisen noticed a shifting in the Copy in front of him. First being that its hands became far, far more detailed and began looking just like the original copies he made of his hands. And after that, Eisen saw something form in the center of the Copy’s chest as it became slightly transparent. Slowly, a very detailed heart formed in its middle, and afterward the ’skin’ of the copy became an opaque white again.

"I see... I don’t know what the incomplete thing is all about, but if it counts as a copy, can I still...?" Eisen muttered out to himself and slowly concentrated on influencing the copy’s movement, and in return the copy began slowly twitching, although not actually moving as Eisen wanted it to. However, in return, he got something that might help with that.

[Mana Hands Skill upgraded to Mana Double Skill, resetting its proficiency to Rank 1, Level 1]

Instantly, Eisen noticed the Copy, or the Mana Double, move more like Eisen himself, immitating his every move. However, since Eisen thought the Mana Hands to be quite useful, he grabbed the hands of the Mana Double and began slowly absorbing the mana he used to create it.

After that, Eisen only filled his hands with mana to try if he could still use only the Mana Hands, and luckily, they soon appeared in front of him, two dismembered hands floating around. And then, Eisen slowly let the rest of his body fill out with Mana, and the more his body was filled with it, the more the Mana Double in front of him grew, until the full Double stood in front of him.

Nodding in approvement, Eisen decided to give the Double more detail, by simply copying other parts of himself in the hopes that they would be taken in by the Double’s body.

Like a scanner, he started at the bottom and slowly copied every part of himself. First his feet, then his legs, his torso, his arms, and then lastly his head, until the Double in front of Eisen looked nearly identical to him, just with completely snow-white skin, and a surprising notification came up.

[Mana Copy of Giant-Dwarf Halfling was completed. Changing name of copy to ’Eisen’]

[For completing a Complex Copy, your Mana Copy Skill earned extra experience]

[Mana Copy reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1]

[It is now possible to copy external objects]

[Due to Ranking-up your Mana Copy Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS]

Nodding in satisfaction, Eisen closed the notifications and looked at the Double. If he could copy external objects now, maybe it would be a good idea to give the Double some clothes, seeing as right now it was stark naked, and if he wanted to use it, Eisen would prefer if others wouldn’t be able to see him like that.

Thus, Eisen absorbed the Mana Double and moved on to the other items in his room. He decided to try and copy the suit first. He pushed his mana out of his body and slowly moved it over the set of clothes.

Now, instead of leaving it in its solid state, Eisen imagined the Mana lose its solid state and turn into a gaseous one, slowly spreading it out like a mist, as this would make it far easier to move into every nook and cranny of the jacket, to copy it in every detail.

He covered his suit jacket with the mist and noticed it pass right through, as if the jacket wasn’t even there. That was when he got an idea.

Instead of replicating the item somewhere else, Eisen simply manipulated the mist so that it would only be in the places where the Jacket also was, directly giving Eisen the copy. Lastly, he simply moved the mist slightly upward and turned it into a solid state again, seemingly completing the copy.

[Mana Copy Library expanded]Fine Jacket

With a smile, Eisen turned the jacket back into its mist state, and moved onto the next item, the pants. Then the shirt, the tie and the handkerchief.

[Mana Copy Library expanded] Fine Suit

[Mana Copy of Fine Suit grew by absorbing the copies of Fine Jacket, Fine Pants, Fine Shirt, Fine Tie and Fine Handkerchief]

And at last, Eisen also copied his shoes so that his Double wouldn’t walk around barefooted. Following this, Eisen summoned his Mana Double and tried figuring out how to actually give him the clothes. Until now, he simply filled his body with mana, but now he couldn’t do that.

He concentrated and pushed out more of his mana, surrouding his double with it. Then, Eisen imagined the Mana Suit forming around the Double’s body, and immediately they formed.

Now, there stood a completely white copy of Eisen, wearing a completely white suit in the center of Eisen’s room.

Just then, Eisen began grinning, and laughing softly. The Double didn’t seem to expend mana anymore after its body was formed. So, Eisen made the Copy slowly pick up the crate filled with the leftover materials.

"I guess I’ve got that problem figured out for now." Eisen laughed out loud while looking at his new pack mule.