Spending my retirement in a game

chapter 22

Eisen frowned and tilted his head slightly at what Morrom just told him. "What do you mean, I can upgrade them?"

With a smile on his face, Morrom began to explain. "Well, it's pretty simple. I'll teach that to you as well when you come here again soon, but a part of what I do here is Enchanting. You can't enchant Mana Crystals directly, but it is possible with these pearls that have a high affinity with Mana Crystals. So I enchanted the pearls with the absorption ability and combined them with the Mana Crystals, which you then used to make thread. This itself can't be upgraded yet, but once you make an actual item, like the dress, out of it, you can practically 'feed' it more Crystals. Basically, every type of crystal works, although the easiest to get are Mana Crystals. I've tried giving a few different items the absorption ability, and it only worked once, when I enchanted the base materials for the item rather than the item itself."

"I see... So the more Crystals I feed the dress, the stronger it gets?" Eisen asked, wondering if he understood this right, and Morrom simply nodded.

"Exactly. It works like leveling up, basically. And every Crystal holds a certain amount of experience, of course, the bigger and higher quality they are the more experience there is. All you need to do to put a crystal into the item is to infuse it with Mana and push it against the item, and the crystal will slowly be absorbed. Simple, right?"

Eisen nodded in response. It really was quite simple. There was just one issue left. Eisen had no idea where to get Mana Crystals.

Morrom sighed closed his eyes, "Right, sorry. I forgot you lost your memories. Well, basically every monster has them. They can usually be found near the heart for low-rank monsters, and for some high-rank ones, it sometimes even replaces the heart completely. The ones you used to make that thread are crystals coming from rank 4 monsters. From rank 8 upward, most Mana Crystals have some kind of effect on them, usually an elemental one, but sometimes it has to do with the skills that the monster uses."

His eyes closed as he scratched his beard, Eisen nodded. "Thanks for that Info, Morrom. You sure you don't want money for the materials?"

"No, that's fine. They would have been lying around in that box forever anyway. Just come here with Bree sometime so that I can see the finished product." 𝑓ree𝑤𝘦𝚋𝐧𝘰ve𝑙. co𝒎

"Thanks for that, Morrom. If you ever need my help, just ask away."

"Well, let's see if you're as talented with Alchemy and Enchanting as you are with other crafts, and then I might need your help with some projects if you don't mind." Morrom explained while Eisen carried the rolls of thread to the front of the store with a small wooden crate.

Eisen laughed softly and agreed to help with whatever Morrom needed him to.

"I'll see you in a few days, then!" Eisen yelled as he was on his way to the Inn, where he went to his room and practiced his skills a little bit more, especially the combination of A Dwarf's Hands and Mana Hands.

That was until he noticed one skill that has been sitting at Level 99 for a few days now. Appraisal. It seemed like it would only take a few more tries until it would Rank-up, and Eisen was actually kind of embarrassed that he completely forgot about it. Thus, he looked at the box in front of him and used his skill.

[Thread]

[Appraisal reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1]

[You will now be shown more information]

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

Eisen was stunned. He literally only needed to appraise one more item, and it would have ranked up long ago. Eisen grumbled to himself and then tried to appraise the same threads again.