Spending My Retirement In A Game

After listening to Stahl’s suggestions, the rather disgruntled Sigurd executed them just as the young man had explained after the Core Guardian was asked to do so by Eisen. The old man hoped that Sigurd would end up warming up to other people, although that seemed to be quite far away, and Eisen didn’t want to ’Force’ Sigurd to be all buddy-buddy with Stahl either, because that wouldn’t help the situation in any way.

So instead, all of Stahl’s ideas had to be voiced by Eisen, Evalia or Xenia. Eisen had considered turning Stahl into a Dungeon administrator as well, but it seemed like he hit the limit of everything in that area, so instead, Eisen turned Stahl into a Dungeon Moderator. He wouldn’t be able to make any major decisions himself, but he would at the very least be able to manually change parts of the dungeon.

Sadly, though, it seemed like Sigurd’s opinion of Stahl hadn’t been elevated all that much, but it at the very least didn’t glare at him all the time.

"Okay, I have just purchased the three types with the points that we had so far, and at the moment I can summon five of each type without having them become a regular part of the spawn-map." Sigurd explained to everyone, and soon a total of fifteen figures appeared in front of everyone. Five Goblins, five Lizardmen, and five Kobolds.

"Alright, then let’s get started, shall we?" Eisen said with a smirk as he took his staff out of his soul storage and created a load of furnaces, anvils, and tables in the corner of the large room, before Xenia looked over at him with a confused expression

"Wait, what are those for? And why do you need that many?" She asked, and Eisen just smirked at her. "They’re for me, the five Kobolds, Stahl and my apprentices." The old man explained, before he chugged down a few mana potions to fill up his mana again, and then looked back at the High-Elf.

"Stahl and Alnico are getting everyone that we may need here, so please sit down with Komer and Sky and teach the Goblins how to calculate and write if you have the time to spare." Eisen asked of her with a smile, and Xenia slowly nodded her head, although she didn’t seem to be all that happy about it.

"Sure... That’s fine, I guess." She answered with a wry smile as she looked at the five ugly, short and green-skinned creatures messing around a few meters next to them, and Eisen then swiftly moved on to Evalia.

"And could you sit down with Sigurd and figure out good designs for everything? Maybe some decorations that it can place at important areas or something like that." Eisen suggested, and the Heavenly Artist swiftly nodded her head and smirked. "Will do!" She exclaimed before turning over toward the Core Guardian with a bright smile, although Sigurd seemed to want to know something else.

"And who is going to instruct the Lizardmen on what to do?" It asked, and just then, the person that the old man had in mind stepped through the Dungeon’s door.

With a curious smile, Kiron slowly stepped through toward the group, and Eisen swiftly appointed him as a Dungeon Moderator as well, before he turned toward his draconic Grandson. "Hey there, Kiron. You mentioned how you always wanted to be the leader of a group of artificial Lizardmen before, right?" Eisen said with a grin on his face, and the Half-Dragon tilted his head to the side rather confused.

"Did I?" He asked with a light frown, and Eisen nodded his head. "Of course you did! Well, here they are!" The old man exclaimed as he pointed at the five Dungeon Monsters that were staring at Kiron with excited expressions. For the most part, Kiron did look like a Lizardman, after all, just that the had wings and a different color of scales, as the dungeon-Lizardmen’s scales had a similar color to Fafnir’s scales.

"No, but seriously, could you teach them a few things here and there? Basically, make sure that they get as big and strong as you are, alright?" Eisen suggested with a smile, and Kiron slowly nodded his head.

"Sure, Grandfather. Erm... And how do I do that?" Kiron then asked with a wry smile, and Eisen just smiled.

"Basically just regular muscle-training. They’re dungeon monsters, so they will adapt pretty quickly. Just make them carry heavy things, do basic exercises, show them how to use an axe and a shovel, and so on." The old man then answered, so Kiron slowly scratched his neck.

"I see. Yes, I can surely do that. Do you want me to teach them how to fight as well, or just pure manual labor?" He asked, and Eisen scratched his cheek in thought. "Well, for now, manual labor is enough. But at a later point we’ll need some Lizardmen that can fight as well." Eisen explained, so Kiron nodded his head with a smile and stepped up to a rather open area, carrying his sword on his shoulder, and the Lizardmen, which were all about half a meter shorter than Kiron, who himself was just a slight bit shorter than Eisen was. And just when Eisen was thinking about how that would probably be the scene of Kiron taking a walk with his own children, it seemed like everyone else also entered the dungeon.

And after Eisen assigned everyone as a Dungeon Moderator so that they could actually directly work on things within the Dungeon, the old man turned toward the Kobolds. "Alright, Dog Boys, follow me." Eisen exclaimed with a smile as he also waved his hand at Stahl and his apprentices to tell them to make their way to the workstations, while the Bipedal Dog-like monsters followed behind the old man.

And after handing out some tools to those Kobolds, each one getting a different type, Eisen stepped up to the workstation in front of all the others.

"Okay! Lessons are starting now. I’ll start rather basic so that the Kobolds can understand, but they should be able to learn pretty quickly, so don’t worry." Eisen explained with a smile on his face, and quite swiftly, Koro lifted his hand rather confused. "Erm... Why are we learning how to do all of this with monsters that barely have proper hands?" He asked with a wry smile, and Eisen just shrugged.

"They’ll adapt. And these guys will be the main construction and crafting-force for the dungeon. They’ll help build everything, and then also craft items for the people that come into the dungeon." Eisen explained with a smile, and Koro slowly nodded his head and Eisen looked over toward the Kobold that was given the Blacksmithing tools.

"You, come over here." Eisen told him, and the Kobold swiftly did what the Dungeon Master ordered, before the old man slightly leaned down toward the, also rather short, creature and showed it how to hold the tools, using it as a way to demonstrate everything to the others as well. As he said, he would be starting with the very basics. Luckily, the Kobold already had five somewhat human-like fingers, so they really would probably just change shape to hold the tools even better later.

Affter showing everyone, with the exception of the four other Kobolds who were just watching diligently, how to hold the tools properly, Eisen moved on to proper stature and movement during work, even focusing on things that the others hadn’t really thought about.

"It’s something that comes naturally with time as long as you try even a little bit, but at some point, you’ll hopefully be able to maneuver your workspace completely blind. That means that you’ll be able to start working without putting needless attention toward setting yourself up properly, but that everything will turn into a smooth motion and demonstrated everything, now just telling the Kobold to mimic what Eisen was doing.

He stood in front of the furnace and while sliding his feet over the ground, immediately turned around and then stood in front of the anvil, ready to get to work. "The more you familiarize yourself with your environment, the more comfortable you’ll feel as well. It’s little things like that which can help you bring items to a new level. It’s actually one of the most important things to further yourself. Whether its that little dent on your handle that you burrow one of your fingers in all the time, or the crack in the ground that you avoid while moving around your workshop, having all of those peculiar little things there at the right time can just help your mentality out. But in the end, you should still be able to work in any situation, so you shouldn’t rely on the fact that you know your environment either." Eisen explained, and while this was just a quite shallow theoretical part that the old man wanted to point out, it was still pretty important in his opinion. But either way, as the next step, Eisen moved onto actual forging. Well, something that had to do with it, at least.

"Each of you, take an ingot of steel and take about a centimeter of its thickness uniformly." Eisen told them, although he had to show the Kobold which material was which, and everyone quickly grabbed the right ingot, slowly placing them into the furnace.

And that was their first mistake.

"Take it out again. I never said to heat it up first, did I?" The old man smirked, before the others looked at him confused, and Koro swiftly spoke up again. "But how the hell are we supposed to do that then?" He asked, and Eisen just shrugged.

"How you normally would do it. Just that this time around, the steel isn’t hot and soft, but cold and hard. Trust me, in the long run, this is all going to help you." Eisen reassured his most troublesome apprentice, and after everyone took their ingot back out of the furnace, they did as they were told. Although the Steel barely even budged, and if it did, not even a whole millimeter.

But everyone continued without complaining out loud, although it seemed like especially Koro was grumbling to himself. Of course Eisen had to help the Kobold out properly at first as well, because this was the first time it was doing something like this, but as the old man had expected, the Kobold’s body was changing at a pace noticable to the blind eye.

It had grown in size by a few centimeters, and its shoulders had become wider, while the muscles that it had been using during the process of crafting were bulging up a little more and the Kobold’s fingers were becoming a bit longer and more defined like a Human’s. Even the originally light gray fur on its body had begun to change its color and became a little darker, setting it apart from its brothers even more, while the four of them were still just patiently sitting there and waiting for their turn.

It took quite a while for everyone to finish the task, however, and even then, everyone seemed to have taken a little bit of damage due to hitting the hard steel repeatedly without a proper break. In real life, Eisen wouldn’t have given such an immense task anyway, and would have just told his apprentices to hit the steel for a few minutes, because it was practically impossible to do there, but due to the system actually helping out with such things, the steel slowly changed its shape and became a little flatter, just as Eisen had wanted it to.

"Good job, everyone." Eisen said with a smile as he handed out a few health potions so that none of them would accidentally drop dead after slowly chipping at their health.

"Now, let’s heat the steel up a little bit and do the same again."