Spending My Retirement In A Game

Chapter 762: Fixed in Space

Eisen listened to Kirisho's explanation of the remnants of the Demon that had been left behind in that cave, and were now trapped inside of this crystal orb. While he was pretty sure that the former Eisen wouldn't have hesitated to kill it the moment he had the chance to, he couldn't be sure that the chance was actually there. If this smoke still held some thoughts, no matter how fragmented they were, then it might not be too crazy for him to think that the Demon is still roaming around in this world somewhere. On the other hand, maybe this smoke was simply left behind through one of the Demon's abilities. If that was the case, then it wasn't really possible for Eisen to figure out whether or not it died just from this.

"Except... maybe..." The old man muttered, looking back at the Mist Spirit in front of him, "It seems to be acting completely on instinct from what I noticed. Is that about right?"

Kirisho immediately nodded her head, looking at the smoke in the orb, "Yes, that's about the limit, I think... Or at least, that's the only thing that's able to show in its current form."

"...In that case, I think I have an idea of what we can do. Do you think you can... influence the smoke? Just give it some sort of input, place an idea into it. Something so that we can properly give it a 'goal'? Even beings with just instincts have goals, I would say." Eisen asked, and Kirisho thought about it for a moment, "I think I should be able to, yes. But it depends on what you want me to do, exactly."

The old man slowly held the orb in his hand, tightening his grip on the smooth surface, and explained, "This smoke is basically completely made of mana. And as far as I know, mana is always connected to the owner at least to a certain extent. A being made of mana that acts on instincts should be able to somehow access that connection. And if that's the case, if we give it a sort of 'goal' to find any other mana that it's connected to, we should be able to find the owner, or any other remnants they left behind. And if not that, then at least some clue to who that Demon was and what exactly its goal was. Even if I have a rough idea."

"I see..." Kirisho said, thinking about it for a moment, "Yes, I should be able to do something like that. Just give me some time, and I will make it useful for you."

"Thank you, Kirisho." The old man said with a smile on his face, as he started taking off his armor, placing it onto a mannequin golem. He stripped out of his clothes he wore underneath the armor, and instead put on his crafting outfit, his thin wool pants and leather apron. With a slight groan, he stretched his body, walking over to an adjecent door, "Were you not planning on resting now?" Kirisho asked surprised.

"Well, sure I was, but this is the best rest I can have." Eisen replied bluntly, as he walked through the door, entering into an empty dome. It was just a hollow space created within this part of the dungeon that Eisen could make use of however he wanted, whether it was for training, working on the creation of larger projects, or for what he was about to do now. After opening his storage space, he quickly grabbed the portable workshop, placing it on the ground in front of him. Eisen watched as the small box folded itself open into a door, and from there expanded outward into a full building. Before it even finished creating the rest of itself, Eisen entered through the structure's door and walked to the back. With a few light creaking noises, the workshop settled into its new, albeit temporary, spot.

Quickly, the old man grabbed some basic ingredients, to try and start working on a prototype. The first thing he needed was something to contain the smoke. He could simply compress it down further if necessary, so the size wasn't really an issue.

"Maybe I could just make a simple compass?" Eisen muttered, although he wasn't fully convinced that the smoke would simply try to pull into the direction of the nearest other 'mana', which was what a compass would require, "I can just make something else if it doesn't work out. I don't particularly have anything else to head toward for now," he thought to himself. Using a mixture of a mana crystal and a soul stone, he quickly formed a finger-sized, thin capsule that he could force the smoke into, and first placed it to the side. After lighting the forge, Eisen grabbed some metal, and placed it inside the flames. He went with some air-mana infused aluminum. It was one of the lightest metals he had that could still be used for things like that.

It would obviously be too weak for anything like a weapon, but for a simple compass needle, this was the perfect thing.

It didn't take long until the aluminum was hot enough for him to work with, so he took out Bai and quickly started to hammer onto the metal, using it to build the framework for the actual needle. There really wasn't much to it, though. Of course, there was the arrow-shaped tip that would point into the right direction and the frame that would hold the crystal tube containing the compressed smoke. But other than that, Eisen also made sure to make two more simple frames, one in the exact center of the needle, and another on the opposite end to the arrow's tip. That latter frame would be used to hold a counterweight so that Eisen could balance the needle properly later. He wasn't sure how heavy the compressed smoke would end up being, after all, but he just added this to make sure that he could adjust everything as needed, so that the weight of the needle itself didn't affect the direction that it pointed at later. Instead, the smoke should have complete control over everything in here.

And in the center, he made a spherical frame that would hold the centerpiece of the needle. For that, Eisen took out a spatial gem. According to Xenia, it couldn't only be used to expand the space of something, as he had been using it until now, but there were a lot more uses that related to 'physical space'. Now, Eisen wanted to make use of one of them. The old man walked over to the marble tabletop by the wall, quickly turning Bai into a carving needle, and started trying to design the enchantment he would place on the outside of the spatial gem, which he already turned into a smooth marble.

What he wanted to do was actually rather simple. The needle was supposed to not only point into flat directions like a normal compass', but it was supposed to point up and down as well. The place where he found this smoke was a good bit below the ground as well, so having this would really be quite useful to point him toward where he needed to search for mana similar to that of the smoke. And for that, he would need the needle to be able to rotate fully within its casing. Of course there were other ways to do this, such as through a gyroscope, but Eisen liked this idea a lot as well. Eisen was trying to fix the spatial gem perfectly into the center of the spherical casing for the compass, and this spatial gem would then be the centerpiece of the needle, so that it could move around freely.

For that, he of course needed some reference points, which he would carve into the glass orb that would act as the casing later as well. But for now, he needed to make the base. The base image that Eisen used for this enchantment was an object trapped in the center of a sphere through thick chains that wouldn't allow for any sort of movement. After integrating the proper runes into the auxiliary aspects of the enchantment, Eisen started describing the enchantment further, using the tiny runic writing as the lines for the enchantment itself. This took a bit longer than usual, since Eisen took this opportunity to play around with a few different things, like describing the enchantment in a way that would make it use less mana, or using different ways to describe the enchantment to come together into one. He did something similar a few times before, but that was usually only when he made actually more complex items. This, however, was really quite simple in its functionality. The marble had to really only do one thing, after all, and that was to stay in the exact center of the orb he would link it to later.

Once he finished carving the enchantment onto the marble tabletop, he transfered it to the marble's surface, before starting to transmute the small object's insides to further enhance the enchantment on the outside. It might have been a little overkill, but it was fun, so Eisen didn't really care.

Soon enough, the marble itself was done, but there was still something else that was needed. He took a mana crystal and wrapped it around the marble, making the hollow space a little bit bigger than the spatial gem itself, so that it had a little bit of wiggle-room, before creating another enchantment on the marble tabletop. This time, it was an enchantment to remove the friction between the mana crystal and the spatial gem as much as possible. This crystal was the thing that would actually be connected to the needle, and Eisen hoped that this would allow for perfectly free, unhindered movement for the needle.

After completing the enchantment, he grabbed a conc

oction that he had created at some point for exactly this sort of thing. It was basically supposed to be the 'perfect lubricant', removing as much friction as possible. He quickly filled a small part of the concoction into a hole he opened up in the mana crystal, letting it flow right inbetween the spatial gem and crystal, before hardening it a little to make sure there was an even distance between the two all around. And just in his hand, he could already roll the marble around, while the spatial gem in the center stayed perfectly still.

"Now, I just need the casing, and then I should be done." The old man said with a happy expression, having successfully distracted himself from today's happenings through his work.

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