Chapter 365 - Combining Yin and Yang
After finally convincing the four Lords, everything could properly start out. While the four Lords were escorting a small group of people to the Harbor to pick up the others, the people that were already at the castle could get things started by setting the castle up correctly for everyone to live in there for a little while, until the first houses were actually finished.
And in the meantime, Eisen was working on something else. One after another, Serio identified where the easiest-to-repair First-Generation Guardians were in the town and then had a few people bring them to Eisen in his workshop in the Garden, where the old man luckily had the perfect assistant.
He just had to say the word, and Constant brought him whatever materials or tools Eisen needed to repair the Guardians, and soon enough, the first of them was already able to walk and talk again.
It seemed like the first generation Guardians were constructed a little differently, mostly just being a lot simpler overall when compared to the 'Second Generation' Guardians, so the old man was able to see through everything relatively easily and swiftly repaired them.
They had slightly different blood to the one that the Second Generation was using, although even then, it seemed like they had more than enough to supply the entire Guardian-Populace in this town a few times over.
And to the old man's surprise, the First Generation Guardians each seemed to have specific roles to them as well, which was mostly assigned due to the race that they were shaped after. The Dwarven-Guardians were craftsmen, the Elven-Guardians were often salesmen, or the Beastperson-Guardians were often Guards. Of course there were exceptions because all of them were allowed to choose their role themselves, but that seemed to be the general rule.
After a little while, Eisen finally finished about a dozen Guardians, trying to focus on those that seemed to be able to repair the houses, and then swiftly sent them out to start on the construction work on the buildings closest to the castle with the help of whoever was currently available. Of course, due to the Town-System, Serio was also able to aid in general construction work of the buildings.
The Town-Guardian spoke about specialized buildings a little as well, something which Jyuuk also mentioned to Eisen when he suggested creating a town in the first place, but none of the buildings that were being repaired were any of those specialized buildings.
Eisen didn't really understand the system behind those structures, but according to what Serio explained to him, they were supposed to be able to boost specific abilities or skills. For example, a specialized Marketplace building would boost someone's Trading Skill, while a Combat-Arena would give a slight boost to combat-oriented skills.
One of the most essential structures, however, seemed to be the Cathedral. The one that used to be constructed there in the town was mostly destroyed, but Serio was already getting onto slowly having it rebuilt through the Town-System, which allowed for structures to be created through some sort of magic, even if it was relatively slow.
But just the presence of a working Mason would speed the process up on top of the work that the Mason themselves would be able to do.
When the old man finally finished repairing all of the guardians in the area of the town that Serio was currently able to govern, while Serio himself actually explained all of these things to him, Eisen got to work on something else. Something that he wanted to take care of for a good while now, simply because the current situation annoyed the shit out of him.
With a slight sigh, Eisen quickly picked up the two vibrating spheres and called Constant to him, who swiftly appeared with a bright smile. "Is the Ceremonial Place ready?" Eisen asked him, and the Core Helper supposed to care for the Castle's Garden swiftly nodded his head.
"Ya got it! And your three sweet Monsters helped me out as well! Caria made the flowers around the place grow again, Melissa's bees helped remove annoying bugs and Sal… Sal was just the heart of the party! A nifty little fella, don't you think?" Constant asked with a bright smile, and Eisen could just reply with a slight laugh.
"Of course. He's not physically strong, but he has a good exposition for magic. He's still learning, but I'm sure once he gets his element or ranks up again, he'll be able to properly help out besides through Dancing." The old man said with a chuckle, and Constant raised his metallic eyebrows, surprised.
"Oh, so you saw it? I wasn't aware the windows faced that way." Constant said with his head slightly tilted to the side, and Eisen just smiled at him in response. "I don't need to see it, Sal dances all the time." Eisen explained and then swiftly followed Constant out to the Garden, before nodding in satisfaction.
In a single day, the horribly overgrown garden was returned to a beautiful, well-kept state, and Eisen could only appreciate such a thing. "You did an incredible job out here, seriously." The old man pointed out before remembering something else.
"Ah, when I came down into the Garden from the castle, I could see a large open area behind the hedge maze. Was there supposed to be anything?" Eisen asked curiously, but Constant simply shook his head.
"Not as far as I'm aware! It was always just a large open space, and you all sometimes used it for Large-Scale Item-Tests." Constant replied swiftly before Eisen slowly nodded his head in response.
"I see… Caria, Melissa, can you come over here for a moment?" Eisen asked them with a smile, and the two small monster girls swiftly approached the old man. The first thing he did, for now, was to simply check the status of them, and opened Sal's as well while he was at it.
"Hmm, so you're all about to Rank up again, huh? Then you must have been a great help in the fights before." Eisen told them as he picked the two of them up on his arms, and Sal climbed onto the old man's head before Eisen increased his size and tried to show them the large open area behind the hedge maze.
"You see that place there, right? That whole open space up to the point where the small river is?" Eisen asked them, and immediately Caria nodded her head. "Yup! Caria has good eyes!" She explained smugly, and Eisen just slightly smirked in response and continued. "Can you two work together on something there? I would love it if you could create special Beehives there that can create honey from a single type of flower. For example, make a hive for just Amran-Bees and surround it with a bunch of Amran flowers. Then another hive for just Byron-Bees and surround it by a bunch of Byron Flowers."
Instantly following the old man's suggestion, the two young monster girls looked at each other with dedicated expressions and nodded their heads happily at Eisen, who happily decreased his size again and set them down onto the ground.
"Thank you, that's going to be a great help. And if any of the flowers seem to die soon, or if any of them are of bad quality, how about you have Sal help you as well? I'm sure he's going to be great at picking flowers." The old man added and immediately could feel Sal's small feet wiggle on the top of Eisen's head, probably meaning that he was excited about it. He didn't want Sal to be left out, but he also figured that could be an excellent chance to get a few plants for potion-making or even Brewing, something that he wanted to get started with again soon.
And so, the three small monsters hurried over toward the open space, and Constant and Serio looked at the old man somewhat surprised. "Master Eisen, you really want to turn that space into a… Flower Field..?" Constant asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "Yes, anything wrong with that?"
"Not wrong per-se, but surprising." Serio replied before Eisen just frowned at him in response. "Why, did I not like such things in the past?" He asked with a light smile, and without hesitation, both Constant and Serio shook their heads.
"You never really cared for little things like that toward the end. Your only goal was the creation of Artificial Life. Of course, you still created other items, but… All of it was to aid you on your path to fulfill that goal." The Town-Guardian explained, and Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard and just smiled at the two of them.
"I see… Well, let's just hope I don't return to that." The old man told them, and then looked at the two spheres in his arm. "Either way, let's just get going with this." Eisen suggested, and the two Guardians nodded their heads in response, before Constant led Eisen through he Hedgemaze to another, slightly larger area that the old man passed without minding it before.
Back then, it seemed like nothing special, just a bit of dirty water around a small hill, but now that everything was cleaned up and the old man could see the carved half-sphere made of rock that was just so overgrown before that he thought it to be a hill. And even under the now-clean water were carvings for enchantments.
"This is something to combine these two?" Eisen asked, before starting to think about the meaning of Yin and Yang again, before realizing what this all was supposed to be.
"Hmm… Yin, North side of a Hill, South bank of a river." The old man muttered to himself and went around the carved boulder before finding a spot in it that one of the Masses seemed to fit into perfectly, and swiftly pushed the Mass of Yin inside, before walking to the other side of the stone-ball. "Yang, South Side of a Hill, North bank of a river." He added, and then quickly placed the Mass of Yang into the spot that seemed to be meant for it.
"And now?" Eisen inquired as he looked at Constant, who just swiftly stepped up to the carved half-sphere and pointed at the top of it.
"Just activate it." He explained, so Eisen swiftly did just that, increasing his size to properly be able to touch the top of the half-sphere, and then slowly poured his mana into the central area.
And when he did, the whole thing began to slightly glow in response, before the Masses of Yin and Yang began to vibrate at an immense rate and then started shrinking down just so slightly over time while the carvings on the half-sphere were filled up by the masses, which seemed to slowly creep up to the central-activation place at the peak.
After a little while, when they finally reached that place and touched, the spots where Eisen placed the masses seemed to be nearly empty, only leaving behind two gems, one black where the white mass of Yang was before, and one white where the black mass of Yin was previously.
And then, slowly, at the top of the sphere, another sphere formed, even if it was acting somewhat weirdly. It was starting to quickly shift between a pitch-black to a bright-white and back through numerous tones of black, although the rate of the sphere's color-shifting slowed down considerably to a point where the change of the shades became nearly impossible to notice.
When all of the masses of yin and yang seemed to be pulled entirely out of the carvings again, something else happened that considerably confused Eisen.
After all that just happened to combine the two masses into a single one, they simply split up into two again. One pure-white sphere and one pure-white sphere. Sure, they seemed slightly different from before, but Eisen thought that this was supposed to combine the two masses with each other.
Although, to his surprise, Constant clapped his hands together happily. "Great! It was a success!"