Spending My Retirement In A Game

Eisen stepped out of the Enchantment Bubble so that his Alchemy Skill wouldn’t be affected, and quickly transmuted the rest of the metal rod into more caps, adding thin spiraling ridges to the caps and the two ends of the pole to make it possible for Jyuuk to simply screw different caps on and off. Eisen designated two caps to simply leave without an enchantment, so that Jyuuk wouldn’t be forced to have an effect to his weapon at all times.

The next enchantment that Eisen would place on the caps was an enchantment that caused something like an explosion of flames to shoot outward around the target when the pole impaced with something. It didn’t take Eisen that long to do, since he already managed to figure out how to create the impct-condition for activation with the ’Force’ enchantment just now. The rest that Eisen needed to do was use the Alchemical Symbol for Fire, and imagine a simple explosion while carving the central image.

After that, Eisen chose the opposite type of enchantment, meaning one that would freeze the area on the target that was hit. Eisen carefully carved the conditions into the cap together with the alchemical symbol for water, using the image of an ice statue.

The third, and for now last, enchantment that Eisen thought of was one of the wind element. It would expell an immensely strong gust of wind on impact with the target, meant to completely push it away. The thing that Eisen imagined for the center was a strong storm with the strength of something like a tornado, definitely strong enough to push you off your feet.

After a bit, Eisen tried screwing all of them onto the pole to make sure they would fit on and the whole thing could be assembled quickly, even in the middle of combat if necessary.

He smiled softly and nodded at the finished item.

[Modular Combat Pole]

[Quality - Highest][Rank - 2]

[Description] A high-quality Steel Combat Pole created by the Craftsman Eisen. It has a mana-crystal core in order to store Mana. Due to multiple mana crystals being used for said core, 2000 MP can be stored in total. As the core is not affixed to the steel itself, it can be swapped out at a later time if necessary. Two Caps can be attached to the ends of the pole to create various effects. Which those effects are depends on the attachment.

[Effect] +5 STR, +5 AGI

[Current Attachments] Force on Impact x2

[For Creating an item of overwhelming quality, you gain +1 STR]

At last, Eisen ’popped’ the Enchantment bubble and walked over to Jyuuk with a smile on his face.

"Here you go. I know it looks a little bit bare, but I’m pretty sure it should be better than what you’ve been using up until now."

"Oh, wow, thank you! You were able to make this really quickly!" Jyuuk exclaimed in surprise and held the metal pole in his hand, trying to swing it around a few times. "This seems perfect... The weight is good, and the length as well. I saw that you screwed these caps on just now, so what’s that about?" He asked, and Eisen handed Jyuuk the other caps that he prepared.

"Let’s just call them ’Effect Caps’. Basically, you can switch them out to get different effects on impact with an enemy. The one you have on right now will give your pole extra impact. These ones here cause either an explosion, freeze the enemy, or push them away with a gust of wind. And then there are two caps to just put on in case you don’t want any effect for the Pole. The way it works is pretty simple, you just have to take off the cap and pour mana into the crystal until you can’t anymore. In total, it can store 2000MP, so I would just add a little bit into it whenever a fight is over so that you don’t pass out by trying to fill it up all at once. Just try the different caps out sometime. And don’t worry, it’s made so that just the end that actually impacts with the enemy shows the effect." Eisen explained and smiled as Jyuuk excitedly stuffed the Effect Caps into his pockets. He quickly screwed one of the Force Caps off the pole and placed his palm onto the enchanting at the end of the mana crystal rod, slowly filling it up with some of his mana. Not too long after that, he placed the cap back on and walked over to the nearest tree.

While holding the pole tightly, Jyuuk got into stance and swung the pole against the tree so that the end of it would impact. Immediately upon forming contact with the bark, cracks formed in the wood and it was pushed in almost immediately as if breaking any second now.

"Wow! This is really good, thank you, Eisen!" Jyuuk said with a huge smile on this face. This was exactly the type of thing that always gave him shivers when watching Anime, those types of cracks that would appear underneath a powerful character’s feet due to sheer pressure!

"I’m not sure if I can give you anything in return, though..." Jyuuk explained with a frown, only causing Eisen to chuckle in response.

"Don’t worry about it! I make things like this for fun, and it was a good chance to just experiment a bit. You don’t have to give me anything for it. Just knowing that a friend of mine is using it is more than enough for me."

Jyuuk frowned softly but still smiled in response to this. "I’m incredibly grateful that you would give this to me basically for free, but I would feel bad... At least let me give you this." The Monkey-Man said and took his backpack from his back, carefully looking through it before grabbing the rag in which that marshmellow-like egg was wrapped.

"I have no idea what this is, beside that it is an egg. My Appraisal Skill is Rank 2, and usually it tells me the full name, and the level or quality, and the rank of things I inspect. But for this, it still just tells me ’Egg’. I don’t know what it is, but it seems to be something pretty cool. I’ve got my babies here already, so I don’t mind giving it to you. Even without a taming class, you should be able to tame one or two beasts or monsters. I don’t know what bonus my title gives to me trying to tame things, but you should definitely be able to tame something that you basically hatch yourself. I’m sure it would be useful." Jyuuk explained while swapping out one of the caps on the pole for the Explosion Cap and the other for the Frost Cap.

"Thank you, Jyuuk. I’ll cherish it, and whatever is born out of this egg." Eisen said with a smile, since he noticed that it meant a lot for Jyuuk if Eisen accepted it.

Jyuuk smiled and looked at the tree in front of him, holding the pole so that the freezing end was pointed away from him, and swung it against the wood in front of him. Immediately, a cold breeze shot outward and froze a small area around where Jyuuk’s pole impacted onto the bark, making it glitter in the sun after it became covered in a layer of ice.

Directly afterward in the same movement, Jyuuk flipped the pole and made the other end with the Explosion Cap hit the frozen area of the tree. An explosion shot out focused toward the tree and shattered the frozen wood into pieces, as well as the direct area surrounding it, turning it completely black due to the fire.

Jyuuk swapped out the explosion cap for the wind burst one excitedly, and hit the ground with it. Immediately, it shot out a strong gust of air that whirled up the dust that surrounded the two of them.

"Wow, this is amazing, Eisen! Thank you so much!" He said excitedly, and Eisen laughed softly while carefully holding the egg in his hand.

"No problem. Just let me know if it stops holding up to your enemies, I’ll make you something new whenever you want. Ah, and when I reach my goal, how about you come to Melroe with us? I can see if I can make something interesting for your beasts as well. Maybe something to add on top of their claws, or some specific armor that fits to their body." Eisen thought with a grin at those ideas. Making things for animals instead of people would probably be pretty interesting to say the least.

"Thank you, I really appreciate it. If you ever need my help, I’m in your debt." Jyuuk said with a smile and bowed forward to show his gratitude.

"Nonsense! It’s the role of an old man like me to support the next generations!" Eisen laughed and slapped Jyuuk’s back in a joking way.

After Eisen grabbed his Flame-enchanted Mana crystal out of the stone forge, the two of them walked over to Bree again, who already finished extracting the Mana Crystals from the Goblins and started to play with Jyuuk’s Beasts a bit while Eisen and Jyuuk were busy otherwise.

"Hey~! Are you to finished now?" She asked with a smile and ran up to them happily.

"Yeah, we are. We’re pretty much ready to fight the next group of Goblins." Eisen said and looked over to Jyuuk to confirm he was ready to go. Before they moved on, though, Eisen made sure he stashed the egg away safely inside of Bree’s backpack.

And then, they continued to hunt.

---

"Jyuuk! Careful, above you!" Eisen yelled out when he saw that an Assassin Goblin jumped down from a treetop toward Jyuuk after the old man managed to slay the goblin in front of him and was just about to move on to the next.

Since Jyuuk was currently fighting against the Goblin in front of himself, a Goblin Shieldbearer, Eisen did his best to hurry forward and defend against the aerial attack directed toward his friend.

He swung his sword to the side above Jyuuk’s head, perfectly hitting the Goblin’s chest and slinging it to the side. Immediately after it rolled on the ground and tried to get back up, Eisen slashed his sword downward and cut into its shoulder, nearly cutting off it’s whole arm and basically letting it hang loose on only a few pieces of flesh. Swiftly, while pulling the Zweihänder out of the wound, Eisen slashed it toward the Goblin’s neck, cutting it open so that the Goblin quickly died in response.

Eisen turned around and looked behind himself, seeing that the fight was now over.

"Thanks for that, Eisen. I really didn’t notice that Goblin there." Jyuuk laughed embarrassedly while scratching the back of his head.

"Don’t worry about it. Glad you’re fine, kid." Eisen smiled and looked at the notifications he missed during combat. It seemed like Eisen leveled up again, so he quickly put his five new stat points into his INT and WIS stats, and then looked at the two rank-up notifications that popped up as well, which immediately made him glad that he started using his Dwarven racial skill during combat as well to help out with his Sword Control.

[A Giant’s Strength reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2]

[Activation Effect and Duration Doubled]

[Due to Ranking-up your A Giant’s Strength Skill, you gained +1 STR and +1 END]

[A Dwarf’s Hands reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2]

[Activation Effect and Duration Doubled]

[Due to Ranking-up your A Dwarf’s Hands Skill, you gained +1 AGI and +1 END]

[Your END stat reached 100. It’s effectiveness rose by 10%]

[Your STR stat reached 100. It’s effectiveness rose by 10%]