Chapter 388 - Printers
"This is really impressive, Sigurd, I have to admit. When I have the time, I'll work on a few more things for this place here and there so it doesn't look just as empty." Eisen told the Core Guardian with a smile, and they then swiftly made their way through the large door to the side of the room that was supposed to be the exit. And when he did so, he soon saw a few of the Lizardmen and Kobolds working together on constructing the rest of this small 'Village'.
They even flattened the ground a little already to create something like a rough path to guide people along the town. "Hmm, interesting. Ah, that big space over there is probably meant as a marketplace, right?" Eisen asked as he increased his size again and looked in the direction of a large square area in the center of the whole dungeon room that was flattened down similar to the makeshift path.
"Yes, exactly. The construction is a bit more concentrated on other parts of this place though. In the end, stalls are more easily made than houses. And I can't make that kind of thing myself yet, all I can do is grow some trees for everything." Sigurd pointed out, before Eisen slowly nodded while moving his fingers through his beard.
"I see… I'm going to help out when I can. That's probably only going to really happen when we're on our way back to the mainland, there's a few bigger projects I need to work on." Eisen explained with a slight sigh, "I really want to help out, though. What a shame." The old man said with a frown, and then quickly downed the next mana-potion to properly keep up all that was happening with his Mana-doubles at the moment, before Eisen then cracked his knuckles and moved on to his work, making his way over toward the area that he had the materials that he might need at any point already stashed away.
And then, Eisen swiftly unsummoned his Doubles, because he simply didn't want to lose concentration while working because of them, and then moved on to swiftly creating whatever workstation he might need for this now and grabbed some steel.
First, he would be making the printing-press, and he wanted it to be stable enough to not break down while the old man was away. The base of the press was just a small metal box in that case, with a stable top surface, because it was where the paper would be pressed down onto. Inside of that box, Eisen would then later place Soul Generators and Mana Batteries, but first, he needed to actually create that box, which was relatively swiftly done by creating simple metal panes. It would have worked just as well just pouring it into shape, but Eisen figured it would increase the quality of the finished item if he did it manually.
And then, after the base was finished, Eisen created the frame for the actual press-parts. Eisen made four metal bars, one for each corner of the base, and then made more metal bars to connect all of them together at the top so that they would all end up stable enough. And in the place where two of the bars would cross each other, Eisen would then attach the actual press-part of the printing press while it wasn't being used.
Along the four vertical bars, where the edges of the press would be, Eisen created some slits to put the press into their so that it would be somewhat 'Guided', before filling the walls of those slits with parts of an enchantment-array that would later connect to the enchantment actually moving the press up and down.
And after that, Eisen had to actually work on the press. He was using metal for that in his a Deep Visualization, but in the end, that probably would be a subpar choice.
Mana-Crystals were much easier to use. For one, they were easier to transmute, so the enchantment for that would save on a little bit of mana, they couldn't deteriorate or bend over time, and it was easier to enchant them so that they would automatically cover themselves in ink.
For now, Eisen simply quickly created a mana-crystal plate and then worked on the enchantments for the interactive part of it, using the marble workstation that Eisen took from the workshop on the central island.
Although, 'Workstation' was probably a little bit too much, as Eisen only had the actual large marble slab with him, but it was relatively easy to create a base for it using his element.
Once Eisen had everything set up, he quickly started working on the different enchantments. First, he created the 'Interface' that would allow you to type up some things on your own to have printed. It wasn't all that hard in the end, at the very least when compared to what Eisen did for Alnico's DJ-Set.
And on top of that, Eisen already practiced this enchantment in Deep Visualization, just that he had to create something a little bit more detailed and versatile this time around.
Basically, this small enchanted crystal would be the most important item to differentiate between the different types of printing-presses. It was in a place relatively hard to access without opening the whole thing up though, which Eisen did deliberately so that nobody could actually mess with it, but he would be creating a different crystal that was capable of color-printing. This one was specifically made for Magic-Contracts, but the other one would be made so that Eisen would be able to actually copy a picture and have it transfered over onto something else so that he could mass-produce different flyers or advertisements as well, just in case it was needed.
Well, it would be needed, considering that Eisen wanted to make use of some large posters to advertise the Dungeon in the towns he was in, and of course to advertise Komer's shop or his own services as well. Although, for those kinds of things, the actual press would be a little different as well, so that Eisen could make use of one of Evalia's special abilities to attract even more people to them. Especially players would be attracted to them if he could properly figure that out.
But first, Eisen needed to make sure that he could properly finish this regular printing-press before trying all that other stuff out. For the most part, everything was mostly done, Eisen just needed to enchant the mana-crystal plate with Evalia's element-creation and set it to a high-mana black ink, add the transmutation process inbetween the Interactive menu and the crystal plate, and then add the rest of the enchantment to have the press actually press down onto the paper.
"Ah, right, I need to add the Scribing as well…" The old man muttered to himself as he slightly sighed, quickly setting another crystal to the side to do that in a bit. Then he could just fuse that crystal with the crystal plate and properly finishing all that.
Then, at least the base printing press would be done, and Eisen could add the paper-dispenser to it later after testing it out properly.
For now, Eisen quickly stepped out of the dungeon and made his way outside the dungeon to enchant everything with the help of Sky, who had the highest Scribing skill of everyone on the ship, and Evalia, so that Eisen could get her element.
And then, Eisen quickly moved on and started to actually assemble the press by setting the crystal plate into a steel casing, whose insides were enchanted so that the transmutation would work more easily for everything.
At last, Eisen was finally finished with the printing press! Luckily, it wasn't all that much larger than a regular printer because the old man tried to compact it as much as he possibly could, which made it really perfect for the intention Eisen had for it, to make a lot of them available to Komer.
But for now, Eisen just had to actually test it. After seeing this item as finished, the old man quickly poured his mana into the small gem that was supposed to be a relay for the setting-gem, and Eisen then swiftly started to type up a very simple, random document. It wasn't actually anything specific, though. He would have typed the base for a contract type in already if he could actually remember how everything had to be, but considering that he only remembered the rough wording of a few of the most important sentences, that was nothing that Eisen would be able to do so easily.
For now, he would make do with this random one, and then hit the 'Accept' button to the right, before squatting down to be able to see the mana-crystal plate to make sure it was really changing its shape. And to Eisen's more than pleasant surprise, it worked very quickly, and after about a dozen or so seconds, everything was properly set up and Eisen could get to work printing this onto the first piece of paper.
Soon enough, the old man activated the respective enchantment and then happily watched as the surface of the crystal-plate became dyed black before pressing down onto the paper.
Just a few moments after that, Eisen was holding the piece of paper with the random text that he wrote up.
"Now then, this works a lot better than I thought it would, huh..?" Eisen muttered to himself, "This kind of thing probably already exists, though, so it's nothing too revolutionary… Although, I didn't really see any magic contracts readily for sale anywhere up until now."
And just after thinking about that, Eisen looked at the time, happy to see that only about 2 hours passed, and he managed to make this really quickly.
"As I thought, making them at least once before really does help a lot…" While the old man was speaking to himself, he quickly got to work on the next item. Or rather, the second one of this same item. Because Eisen was planning on making at least half a dozen of this exact type, four for Komer and two for himself, although those for himself would be changed a slight bit so that he would be able to easily switch out the 'Modes', between the regular Writing-Based and the Picture-Based printing, as well as the special type of Picture-Based Printing that Eisen wanted to try and figure out.
In the end, though, when they arrived at the island, Eisen didn't manage to finish up a single one, because he was making all of the different pieces in bulk at once so that he didn't need to switch between skill-settings for his Crafting Space skill or for the sigil on the center of his chest in his Demon-Form. They were both important parts of his process at this point, but it was somewhat bothersome to have to change it all the time, especially because Eisen very often forgot and only noticed in the middle of his work for another piece.
So, because of that, Eisen had nearly all the pieces ready, but wasn't able to actually assemble anything yet. But it was fine, he would probably be able to finish it up within a few hours when he got back to it. For now, there was something else that the old man had to deal with, and due to that, quickly stepped through the entrance area and out of the Dungeon, quickly making his way toward where the others were standing.
Eisen was pretty tired right now because he's been awake for a while now, considering that the Deep Visualization didn't drain any stamina but also wasn't considered sleep, so he wanted to get this all over with as soon as he could.
And what he wanted to get over with exactly was the conversation with the giant dragon-like see-creature that was raising its head out of the water in front of the ship, creating giant waves as it did so.