Spending My Retirement In A Game

Once Eisen made sure that the stream of water finally stopped, he finally looked at the notification that was currently floating in the corner of his eye.

"What’s this now? Sorcery?" Eisen asked himself in confusion, before Komer tilted his head to the side a slight bit, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Eisen, what did you just do? Wasn’t that thing floating in the air there an enchantment circle?" The young merchant inquired.

"Yeah, that was exactly what it was. Apparently, this kind of thing is called ’Sorcery’ and has its own skill as well. Wait... I think..." Slowly, Eisen remembered that he had read the word in the context of how to cast magic before, as he was flipping through the book about different ways to cast magic that he hadn’t actually read yet.

"How curious... I’m going to take a look at that later, but for now, I’ll test out a few more things with wands. Komer, could you grab me some of the smaller pieces of wood in the tube as well as a few mana crystal please?" Eisen asked the young merchant, that was currently acting somewhat like an assistant, while Eisen himself grabbed a few items and tools related to enchanting, because he wanted to try some things out first. This was far more interesting to Eisen than figuring out what Sorcery can do.

A short while later, Eisen grabbed some magic wood and began carving it into a simple wand-shape, the same that he had used for the two wands he made before. In total, Eisen made three more wands like that that were all identical in the type of wood that was used, as well as the shape and size.

Next, Eisen began to enchant. First, he grabbed one of the enchanting-marbles that he had and quickly enchanted it with one of his skills, Mana Manipulation, which was then transferred over to a mana crystal. He did the same thing again, just then using the skill for his Flame of the Earth element instead of his Mana Manipulation.

Once that was done, Eisen carved a thin spiral going from one end to the other into two wands, and quickly used transmutation to fill out those spirals with one of the enchanted mana crystals each.

What Eisen did with the third wand was pretty simple, as he just quickly hollowed it out and filled it with a mana crystal rod that was turned into a regular mana battery.

This way, Eisen wanted to test out the three different variations of wands that he could immediately think of. He could have done another one for the sorcery skill he just received, but considering that he just received it and that it was merely at Rank 0, level 1, it would probably not do anything but waste one of the enchanting marbles.

But first, Eisen wanted to take a look at the wands’ information to see if they took on a special quality.

[Low-Grade Manipulation Wand]

[Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2]

[Description] A wand made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has been made out of Low-Grade Wizard’s Oak. A Mana-Manipulation enchantment increases the control over your raw mana even more

[Effect] +15 INT, +5% Benefit to Mana Manipulation

[Low-Grade Elemental Wand]

[Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2]

[Description] A wand made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has been made out of Low-Grade Wizard’s Oak. And elemental enchantment causes all mana poured into this wand to be immediately changed to an inferior version of that element. As such, this wand requires far more mana, and has a lower benefit to control than usual. Pre-Infused mana of another element cannot be used with this wand, while Pre-Infused mana of the same element greatly increases this wand’s and the element’s effect. To be able to use the wand, the Mana Manipulation skill of the user has to be at least Rank 2.

[Effect] +5 INT, Elemental Infusion

[Element] Flame of the Earth

[Low-Grade Battery Wand]

[Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2]

[Description] A wand made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has been made out of Low-Grade Wizard’s Oak. It has a built-in mana battery, and as such, mana can be stored inside beforehand.

[Effect] +10 INT, Mana Storage

[Storage Amount] 1000MP

"Now, let’s try this out then." Eisen said with a smile as he curiously grabbed the staff with the mana battery first, simply providing it with his mana for a while until he noticed that it wasn’t absorbing any more.

After that, he could simply manipulate the mana that was inside of the battery in the same way as if it was poured directly out of his body, without actually needing to provide any more mana than he already did. This would probably be quite useful to use for mana-inefficient spells, as long as you had enough time to fill the battery up and make sure that your mana regenerates as well.

Next, Eisen grabbed the wand with the mana manipulation enchantment and tried this out as well. It really just worked like the regular wand that Eisen tried out before, although you could clearly notice a difference in how smoothly your mana could be manipulated after coming out of the wand. With different movements of the wand itself, it was now possible for Eisen to more easily change the shape or state that his mana took, as long as the movement of the wand somehow corresponded to what Eisen ’willed’ the mana to do.

And at last, Eisen also tried out the elemental wand. First, Eisen simply poured his mana into it to form something in the air with the wand, and saw something similar to his element be pushed out.

However, it was only similar, and in the end quite different. It was a simple ball of loose dirt that would only begin ’flowing’ around like the normal flame of the earth element if Eisen actually touched it and tried moving it around. That was probably what was meant with ’inferior version’ in the wand’s description.

And after that, Eisen also tried to use pre-infused mana with this wand, and what came out of it seemed to be Eisen’s regular element, without any difference whatsoever. Although that was only the case at first, but once Eisen attempted changing the states, he did actually see a little increase in how far he could go, although that was only, for example, by about two to three dozen degrees when trying to turn it further into hot flames.

"Interesting... Komer, your Mana Manipulation is still rank 1, right?" Eisen inquired, since he wanted someone else to test this out as well. Maybe it still somehow gave a small passive bonus to him because it was his own element that was used to enchant the wand with.

The young merchant nodded his head as he was playing around with the staff enchanted with mana manipulation, "Mhm, it is. I’m pretty close to getting it to rank 2 though. You said I shouldn’t bring it there yet, right?"

"Well, it should be alright at this point. Your Trading skill is your highest, you’ve gained that Scribe skill as well after all the notes you’ve been taking, and it’s pretty high as well, right? You’ve been doing really well as a proper merchant, and you’ve been concentrating on what it is that you’re selling a lot rather than the money that you’d gain from selling it. I think it’s about time you get it to Rank 2 and get your element, but you should still wait just a little bit longer. When we arrive at the Magic city, we’ll be selling our items in heaps again, hopefully. Bring your skill to Rank 1, level 99 before then and try to rank it up just after a successful day of sales, just to make sure you get a great element related to being a merchant." Eisen suggested in a somewhat lengthy explanation.

With a large smile, Komer quickly nodded as he formed his hand into a fist. "Alright! Awesome! I really want to know what my element is, yours is so cool!" The merchant exclaimed with a laugh, and Eisen nodded as he chuckled, before Komer continued with a tone of worry. "Although I hope that I will actually get a special element like you did, and won’t just have to choose one of the regular elements.

"Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure that you’ll get a special element as well. So far, everyone whose element I know has had a special one rather than one of the regular types. They’re all somehow based off of the regular elements, but I’m guessing that everyone gets a special element that fits to who they are and what they do."

"I really do hope so, yea... Anyway, why did you ask about my skill rank all of a sudden?" Komer asked with a curious expression, before Eisen began to explain.

"Ah, it seems like to use the wand I enchanted with my element, you need to have reached Rank 2 with Mana Manipulation. I guess it’s so that you know how to deal with an element, maybe. I just wanted to have someone else try this out, but I guess I’ll ask Sky real quick then."

Shortly after Eisen said this, he stuck his head through the window in the front of the carriage once more to talk to the two Fey-kin, asking Sky to help him for a second.

"Oh, sure... I don’t have too much mana though, so wouldn’t Bree be a better person to do that?" The Fey-kin asked as he grabbed the small wand, before realizing that Bree was actually the last person Eisen could ask. "Ah, right... Bree can’t use magic this way... Sorry."

"It’s fine, Bro! Don’t worry about it, I can deal with it!" Bree huffed proudly, giving Sky a reason to sigh loudly while smiling wrily.

"Alright, so just a small ball then?" Sky asked as he turned to Eisen, who simply nodded. "Yeah, please. That should be enough."

After that, Sky quickly nodded and began to use the wand, before a small ball of loose dirt appeared at its tip, that Eisen quickly reached out for to see what its consistency was like. And after confirming that it was exactly like the version that was produced when Eisen used it with regular mana, he smiled in satisfaction.

"Perfect. Thanks for the help, Sky!" Eisen said with a thankful tone in his voice as he was handed the wand again.

"Of course!" The Fey-Kin boy replied with a smile, before Eisen went back into the main part of the carriage. "Now that I know that this works like that, I can just continue, huh?"

"Continue with what?" Komer asked curiously after hearing Eisen say this, before watching the old man strip the mana crystal spiral off of the elemental wand with the use of transmutation.

"I’ll make wands now. No special ones, just a few dozen regular ones. Well, I guess not regular, since I’m putting the mana manipulation enchanted mana crystal spiral and the mana battery into all of them. Just to make them more attractive to potential customers." Eisen explained while pouring out a small bag filled to the brim with enchanting marbles, before getting to work.

For the next while, Eisen simply enchanted different mana crystals into what they needed to be over and over again. And quite coincidentally, as he was reshaping a mana-crystal battery with transmutation, two of his skills ranked up basically at the same time, giving Eisen his next two rank 3 skills.

[Alchemy reached Level 100 in Rank 2, upgrading to Rank 3]

[You can now combine crystal or gem structures]

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

[Enchanting reached Level 100 in Rank 2, upgrading to Rank 3]

[You can now delete enchantments you made yourself]

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