Spending My Retirement In A Game

"Huh? What’s that pile of... stuff... you made there?" Evalia asked confused, and Stahl simply grinned at her. "Nothing special, just something I’ll need for another project I’ll work on some other time." He answered, and Evalia smirked at him as she crossed her arms.

"Oh, I see, I’m interested to see that finished project at some point then." She said with a chuckle, before Stahl nodded his head and stood up to properly talk to the woman in front of him.

"I’ll show you in a bit then! It should be finished before Gramps comes back..." Stahl said with a smile, and Evalia nodded her head. "Nice. Anyway, let’s move on to the last skill you’ll learn, alright?"

"Ah, right! Photography, wasn’t it?" He asked curiously, and Evalia nodded her head, already swiftly grabbing the sphere that she brought over here as well as the simple mana-crystal ’tablet’ that came with it.

"Yup! Eisen made it so that all of us can control this thing. So, CB-1, wake up, float in front of us, and connect to device!" Evalia exclaimed, before the sphere in her hand began to shake for a moment before it unfolded itself, revealing it’s perfectly round body and two big wings, which it immediately used to float in the same spot, while the screen in Evalia’s hand started to display what it was seeing, which was just Evalia and Stahl standing next to each other.

"Oh! So that’s what it was! Gramps asked me and my dad to help him out a bit to try and figure out proper configurations before I even started to play! Pretty cool, though." The young man said with a grin, before Evalia nodded her head with a smile.

"Mhm! Now, just tell it to ’Take a Picture’, and it will show you a still image of whatever it was seeing at the moment. We can’t save the pictures anywhere, but it’s enough to gain proficiency in the skill. It takes a little bit because it’s not really a camera meant to take pictures, but you should manage in a few hours. Just don’t ’spam’ taking pictures, that’s just going to halt your proficiency gain immensely." She explained before scratching the back of her head. "I advise you take this with you and just command CB-1 out loud to take pictures whenever you feel like it." Evalia suggested, so Stahl swiftly nodded his head.

"Alright, sounds good! Is it alright with you if I leave all the parts here for now? I don’t really know where else to put them, and here is pretty safe. I doubt any of the people you brought with you from Handor would dare break in here and even steal something, after all." Stahl said with a smirk, and Evalia just nodded, not able to refute it, although she was somewhat glad she didn’t need to worry about stuff like that.

"Mhm, then I’ll just see you later tonight during Dinner! I heard it’s a pretty nice stew today." Evalia said before Stahl nodded at her and stepped out the door, leaving the artist alone with Alnico, while Stahl made his way to his next ’Trainer’. Jyuuk.

Luckily, he had to work pretty late in the day in real life this time around, so he ended up playing for another in-game day. Otherwise, Stahl would have possibly missed a pretty good chance, because Brody was offline, as he was working, and he meant to go to Xenia last because he didn’t want to get his element pre-maturely.

And he knew quite well that Jyuuk would most likely be found in the training area, where not only he, but also Brody and the other combatists on the ship from amongst the people from the church were training in the daily.

"Eyyoo, Jyuuk!" Stahl exclaimed with a grin, CB-1 flying behind him while Stahl told it to take a picture of the room. With a smile, Jyuuk made his way over from the corner where he was trying to get some of his undead to learn some combat abilities.

"Good day Stahl. So you’re done learning from Evalia? She told me about the progress you made yesterday, and it’s quite impressive, I must say." The Beastperson said with a smile, before Stahl nodded his head slightly embarrassed.

"Haha, not really, I just learned a few skills and got them to rank 1. All that did was increase my Mental stats a little." He said with a smirk, so Jyuuk chuckled and nodded his head. "I see. So you would like to learn from me now, yes?" Jyuuk asked, before Stahl immediately nodded his head, so the Monkey swiftly smirked and waved his hand to make the young, green-haired man follow back to the corner where his undead were currently waiting.

And instead of handing him some bones to play around with for necromancy, or even seeds to make grow, what Jyuuk handed him were three books. One about numerous different species of plants, one about numerous different species of animals and monsters, and one about general anatomy in different species.

"Huh?" Stahl asked surprised, before Jyuuk smiled at him.

"The largest reason why I have such high control over my undead and monsters is because I know what they are. For my monsters, I know their traits as living creatures, and try to enhance those natural traits as best I can. It allows me to care for them better in different ways. But it is most noticable in my Plant Control and Necromancy, you see? If I didn’t know about all the plants in different books, I wouldn’t be aware of what they can do, and how they would be useful. Sure, I could just use generic species, but that’s no fun." Jyuuk chuckled, while Stahl just tilted his head to the side a bit confused, still unsure what Jyuuk was trying to tell him. Noticing this, the Beastperson continued.

"In order to bind enemies down, instead of just using any plant with natural strong qualities, I may use plants with naturally adhesive qualities. While enhancing the proteins that make up those adhesives on a basic level, I will also enhance and change the structure of the roots, maybe interchanging them with another species’ so that they have a better hold in the earth. And when it comes to undead, it’s quite obvious why my knowledge is useful, right? I can easily notice any mistake in their bodily structure, I’m able to give them artificial musculature by using different plants, and in some cases, I even use special species of flora to give them new abilties or just strengthen their general, basic features. And as such, so that you can have that knowledge as well, I will have you learn what’s in those books." Jyuuk explained with a smile so large that it pressed his eyes shut, before Stahl slowly nodded.

"A-Alright, I guess I’ll just study then..." Stahl sighed, but Jyuuk shook his head. "Of course I won’t just have you study like a regular student, but in a rather special way. I have marked the pages for this ’lesson’ in the books. We’re starting with ’Floressence’." Jyuuk explained, pointing at the book about plants on the top of the pile Stahl was holding, before Stahl nodded his head.

"Oh, and we’re of course going to learn about souls as well. It’s a bit more spiritual, and not necessarily my area of expertise, but as my way of handling it is about taking on different characteristics of souls, it should be fine." Jyuuk chuckled and took out numerous small poutches out of his backpack, and Stahl looked at him surprised as the two sat down in the corner of the room to get a better look at everything.

"Now, first, let’s take a look at these different herbs. I’m not sure if you learned about it yet, but these are incredibly important in alchemy, but also in other purposes. This will require you to use a bit of magic, but not too much, so it shouldn’t be enough to have you rank your skill up." Jyuuk explained before pulling out a single seed out of one of the pouches and balanced it on the tip of his finger. Soon, the seed cracked open and it began to grow and grow, before covering Jyuuk’s entire finger. And then, he pulled Stahl’s hand forward, took out a knife, and cut across his palm.

"What the- Dude, what are you doing?!" Stahl asked confused, unsure if Jyuuk was trying to kill him all of a sudden, before Jyuuk chuckled. "Just wait. Show me your palm again." He said, before Stahl hesitantly did so. And immediately, Jyuuk touched the place where Stahl now had a small cut, before it nearly instantly healed up.

"This is a herb with healing properties. It’s used in Mid-Grade health potions. What you do within alchemy is quite simple. With the help of mana crystals and mana, you extract the properties of certain plants to cause a certain effect. This here is the same principle. Usually, just touching this herb will do nothing. Even when you chew it up and eat it, it’s only going to maybe slightly help your vitality for a little while, but it won’t have any direct effects shown on your status." Jyuuk explained, but Stahl just looked at him confused as he pulled on the skin on his palm to really make sure the wound was closed.

"Then how did you do that just now? Was that some type of magic?" Stahl asked, and Jyuuk tilted his head to the side with a questioning expression. "I wonder. It’s not really magic, but it’s not not magic. It’s a bit of both, and neither, I guess? You see, it’s more of a ’Life Essence’ skill. You could say that the control of ’Life Essence’ is a type of magic, but in my opinion, it’s not really. You need mana to manipulate it though, so I get it. I guess you know about my Plant Control skill, right? It’s what I use to make my ’Overgrown Undead’. But the skill I used just now is called ’Plant Manipulation’." Jyuuk explained, but now Stahl was even more confused.

"Huh? That sounds like the same skill though." He asked, growing quite curious at this, before Jyuuk continued.

"You see, ’Plant Control’ is about controlling the physical form and body of plants. You can make them grow faster, you can make them be more nutritious, or you can make them sturdier. Basically, it controls any technically non-magic attributes. ’Plant Manipulation’ however is about controlling the essence of plants. Something that’s somewhat there, but not really. It’s not magic, so it can’t truly be noticed by magic-perception skills, but it’s there in everything. Most of the time, for creatures with strong essences, those essences mixed into their mana so it’s hard to see the difference if you looked at both next to each other. But what I did here was take the essence that was inside this plant and pulled it out so that I could heal your palm." Jyuuk explained, and Stahl could only look at Jyuuk’s finger curiously.

"Really? So you have a ’Healing Finger’ now?" Stahl asked, but Jyuuk swiftly shook his head.

"No, healing that small cut exhaust every bit of essence inside of the herb, so it’s dead now. It was a freshly grown plant, after all." Jyuuk answered.

"Oh... So basically, Essence is a finite fuel that can be found inside of plants?" He asked, and Jyuuk immediatley nodded his head. "Exactly. Plants may be alive, as shown by the fact that they have Life Essence, but they aren’t truly living. Only creatures that are truly living can replenish their life essence." He explained, so Stahl nodded his head.

"Interesting... Hmm, this would be quite interesting to use for Alchemy then if this is already doing what you want it to do, right?" Stahl asked, and Jyuuk nodded. "Yes, it is, actually. I only recently found this effect when working with Xenia, so I was not able to inform Eisen of it yet, but through the experiments Xenia and I did, this would be an incredible way of enhancing any potion!"