Spending My Retirement In A Game

"So those three kids were Deltas?" Brody asked once more as he looked up at the large man next to him, who swiftly nodded his head. "Yes, they were. They were acting pretty idiotic for the most part, though. Although I’m surprised they already managed to get here, their levels didn’t seem to be that high." Eisen pointed out before Brody sighed loudly.

"Oh yeah, I get what you mean. I was nearly attacked like twice over the past few days since the first of them got here. But I got them to appraise me, and they saw I’m a player, so they just apologized and left." Brody explained. "Kinda weird though, I’m sure they should’ve seen us in the trailer. Well, at least Evalia’s bein’ recognized every time she sees a Delta. The girl’s just been sittin’ in her room at the inn the whole time."

"Wait, really? Maybe I can make her a mask or something. Or just generally anything that makes sure she isn’t recognized right away." Eisen muttered to himself before he and Brody reached the inn and made their way inside. Luckily, the place was built for even larger people than Eisen to comfortably get in and be able to move around without worry, so he didn’t need to shrink down and could stay Titan-sized.

"Oh, and Komer’s told us about what you found. Pretty cool stuff. Although I don’t think anybody besides those three kids and Evalia are here. We didn’t expect ya to be back so early. Anyway, Komer met up with that Lord guy and is out to get the wood, should be back later this afternoon with everythin’ we need." The Demon-Orc Halfling explained to the old man next to him, who nodded with a smile and squatted down slightly to fit through the door to his room, where he immediately looked around.

His three apprentices, currently playing a card-game of some kind to pass the time, were sitting on a bed with Evalia sketching something in the other corner of the room, and they all looked at him in surprise.

"Oh! We didn’t expect you to be up yet!" Rouge exclaimed, and Koro looked down at the cards in his hands before looking back at Eisen. "Erm... Wanna play with us?" He asked, but Eisen shook his head.

"Don’t worry. You can keep playing for a while. Brody just told me that the wood for the ship is going to be here later today, so take a break for a little while longer, because we’ll be working hard non-stop from then on." Eisen told them, and he wasn’t kidding either. He had already talked to Tony and his grandchildren about it, telling them that he would be playing at the very least, the whole of Saturday because he needed to get the Ship done as quickly as he could. And of course, he wouldn’t let his apprentices laze around during that time.

He would be getting a lot of help from the people at the Church as well, so it surely should be finished within a relatively short time, if Eisen could manage everything properly. And for now, the three boys quietly sighed while nodding their heads, continuing their card game for now. And while they were doing that, Eisen sat down next to Evalia, who seemed to be sulking a little bit.

"You okay?" Eisen asked her before Evalia looked up from the paper she was looking at and nodded her head. "I’m fine..." She muttered, and Eisen smiled and sat down next to her on the bed, obviously now shrinking down to his regular size so that he wouldn’t accidentally break the bed just by sitting on it.

"Well, I heard you’re being recognized a lot. Want me to help you with that a bit?" Eisen asked her before she looked at him surprised before slowly nodding.

"Sure. But what can you do? I wanted to play this game for a little while longer, at least without needin’ to worry about where I’m goin’ and what I’m doin’. Maybe I should have changed my appearance after all..." Evalia said, paying extra attention so that the three boys wouldn’t hear her speak before Eisen shook his head. "You don’t need to do that. I can make you a mask, right? And I need to level up my Drawing skill, so let’s brainstorm a bit while I sketch the ideas out." Eisen suggested before Evalia handed him the paper and the pencil, which the old man gratefully took from her.

"Thank you. Now, let’s start simple. Would you like something that covers your whole face, or just something like those cough-masks that only cover your mouth? I heard a lot of celebrities use those to hide these days." He suggested, sketching out the rough shapes for both, to get at least a little bit more proficiency out of this, before Evalia thought about it for a little while.

"I do wear that cough-masks quite a lot, but ya usually don’t wear them by themselves, but like, with a hoodie, hat, and sunglasses or something." She explained, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, trying to sketch all those parts so that he could figure out something that maybe looked like it before he also looked at Evalia’s relatively simple clothing.

"Maybe I could make you something like a hood then as well that you can pull over your head if you need to." He suggested, taking another piece of paper and starting to sketch out a swift idea on that. "That sounds good. I didn’t buy anythin’ clothes-wise yet..." She explained, and Eisen slowly nodded his head.

"I see, we can work on that later as well, then. I mean, what I’m thinking right now is something like a two-piece mask. Like, I could put something into the mouth-part that acts as a speaker and makes your voice louder automatically, so it would serve a purpose besides hiding your face, and then if you’re in an area with a lot of people, especially... ya know..." Eisen whispered the last few words, before swiftly continuing, "... you can just connect the upper part of the mask, pull over your hood, and you can walk around without any worry."

"Oh, that would be just amazin’!" Evalia exclaimed excitedly, looking down at the sketch that was currently only showing round pieces of wood, which the old man continued to refine for another while, even figuring out ways to paint it after it was done.

"Hmm, we could Hydro-Dip the mask, if you like that style?" Eisen suggested, and Evalia thought about it for a while. "That’s the thing where you put spray-paint on some water and then push something through that, right?" She asked, and Eisen nodded.

"Yes, that’s the gist of it. It should be able to give you some fascinating and unique patterns." He explained before Evalia swiftly nodded her head.

With that, the mask-design was finished, and next came the design for Evalia’s hood, which would also be made in a similar style. They couldn’t Hydro-Dip it like the wooden mask, but Eisen knew a few tricks here and there to get similar results on fabric. So, Eisen chose to work with a simple white base, with no unique design in any way. It was just a thin cloth with arms and a hood that would be hanging loosely down Evalia’s body while she was wearing it like a jacket.

And soon enough, once Eisen combined a full-body sketch of Evalia herself, the hood, and the mask, a particular little skill ranked up, causing quite a fortunate series of events.

[Drawing reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2]

[By focusing on precisely one object while drawing, your hands will receive slight assistance]

[Due to Ranking-up your Drawing Skill, you gained +1 WIS and +1 AGI]

[Level up Quest Complete - Road to 100]

[Description] You have reached Level 99 and as such have gained the right to work toward achieving

level 100.

These are your requirements as calculated by your actions so far:

-Blacksmithing, Tailoring, Leatherworking, Enchanting and Alchemy Skills at Rank 3 (True)

-Racial Skills at Rank 3 (True)

-Occupation Skill Crafting Space at Rank 3 (True)

-Mana Manipulation, Flame of the Earth Magic at Rank 3 (True)

-Woodworking, Cooking, Drawing, Tool Connection, Soul Engineering, Truth Seeing Eye at Rank 2

(True)

-Gain Title Champion II (True)

-Using Soul Engineering, give a form to a soul (True)

-Learn Farming, Mining, and Masonry Skills (True)

[Reward] Level increased to 100

[Failure] Not possible

[Tasks completed]

[You are now level 100]

[Congratulations! You reached level 100 and have now gained a new benefit and a new occupation skill!]

[You can now found a guild!]

[Crafter’s Mind Skill Learned]

With a grin, Eisen now laid the piece of paper and the pencil to the side, quickly opening the chat window to message Xenia and Jyuuk to tell them to come to the Inn room as soon as they could. He got immediate answers when he told both of them what just happened, and they were instantly on their way.

In the meantime, Eisen looked at Brody and Evalia. "Alright then, I just finished my Level-Up Quest, and am now level 100. Xenia and Jyuuk are on their way so that we can finally complete founding our guild." The old man explained, before Brody sat down on the bed opposite to Eisen and Evalia with a grin.

"Awesome! And what’s the new occupation skill you got when you leveled up?" He asked before Eisen quickly checked.

[Name - Crafter’s Mind][Rank - 0][Level - 1]

[Description] The Crafter’s Mind Skill is one that can assist you in many different ways, mostly helping you gather information about numerous types of situations and then helps you figure out what can be done by a crafter that perfectly suits that situation. Can be used to remember different recipes and blueprints, plan construction work, or find out which item fits best to which person.

"Huh... Well, it’s called ’Crafter’s Mind.’ It’s an assistance skill and helps me with everything that would usually be going on within my head. Like remembering recipes for potions or dishes, I guess. And it might also be able to help me visualize things? But I don’t know how it could do the last ability that’s mentioned here..." Eisen muttered to himself before he looked at Brody and tried to activate the skill to activate that particular last ability mentioned in the skill’s description, before something different than he expected happened.

[Some of the ’Crafter’s Mind’ skill’s abilities have been absorbed by the ’Truth-Seeing Eyes’ Skill]

[Visualisation, Characteristic Scan, can now be used within the ’Truth-Seeing Eyes’ Skill. Usage of these abilities will give proficiency to both the ’Truth-Seeing Eyes’ Skill, as well as the ’Crafter’s Mind’ Skill]

Surprised, but merely accepting this unexpected change, Eisen activated his truth seeing eyes, thinking about the activation of the ’Characteristic Scan’ Ability.

When he did, the world around him didn’t change that much to what it was usually like when this skill was active in its original base-mode, just that when he focused on a specific thing, that thing slowly began to gain some color while the rest faded away to be even more blurry than before. And so, when he focused on Brody, a few different things happened.

Eisen received several bits of different information about Brody that could be attained by merely looking at him, although with surprising accuracy.

The system gave him Brody’s height, his race, and weight, as well as a few minor unnecessary information like his hair, eye, and skin color. That was about it. Right now, Eisen didn’t expect too much from a Rank 0 skill, but even then, this was pretty helpful already. With such precise information, Eisen was at least able to accurately know what to remember while making items for him, mainly just balance-wise.

At later points, it might work similar to a proper appraisal and let him know about other things, such as stat, style or skill focus, so that he could even more accurately create items for others.

Considering that Eisen was planning on taking commissions soon, including the ones that Komer had gotten for him while selling items over the past days, this would surely come in quite useful at one point or another.