Spending My Retirement In A Game

"Oh? So this book can display what’s going on inside of the stories written into it?" Eisen asked as he looked at Sky, trying to confirm that that was exactly what at the very least seemed to be going on, and Sky nodded his head slowly.

"Apprently so, yeah... Eisen, this is amazing, I don’t know how to thank you, this is just... Awesome!" Sky exclaimed, and Eisen replied with a smile.

"Well, I’m glad you like it, bud." The old man chuckled and rubbed his hand through the Fey-Kin’s blue hair, before he leaned in a bit closer and took a look at what was actually displayed on the pages again. "And that’s the Fairy Forest?" Eisen asked as he raised his eyebrows, and Sky nodded his head with a slightly bitter smile, "Yeah... It is... This Story is called ’The Queen of Fey’, and that in the center there is her." Sky explained to Eisen and then scratched the back of his neck, "Bree’s and my mother was a close retainer to her, actually... I’ve met the Queen a few times before, although only a handful. Well, to be fair, I’ve ’seen’ her twice a year, but I only spoke to her a handful of times." The Fey-Kin boy told Eisen, who once more looked at him quite surprised.

"What do you mean you’ve seen her twice a year?" He asked, choosing not to delve too deep into what Sky mentioned about his mother so that he wouldn’t hurt him somehow. With a smile, Sky then turned to the old man and began to explain what exactly he meant.

"Ah, you see, there’s two big ceremonies in the Fairy Forest, the Wake of Spring, and the Sleep of Fall." Sky explained, and then scratched his cheek with a light smile. "Fey themselves are heavily connected to nature themselves, because the first Fey were Spirits given true Life, but the Queen of Fey is an existence like no other, an embodiment of nature. She’s sometimes called ’Mother Nature’, even. In the Wake of Spring, she quite literally wakes up and gives a blessing to the world to properly start Spring. And then, throughout Summer, she sits in the center of the forest to connect with nature, while the Forest grows around her. Then in Fall, the Queen goes to sleep and doesn’t wake until the next Spring, and during her absence, Winter happens." Sky explained with a smile on his face, seeming weirdly sad and happy when speaking about Spring in particular.

"The Queen is basically absent at any time, so her Retainers act as protectors during that time, and it’s always the most powerful Fey of each seasonal type." Sky explained, but Eisen just looked at him curiously. He hadn’t heard that much about Fairies yet even if he was travelling with two Fey-Kin siblings.

"Seasonal Types? Are Fey split up like that?" Eisen asked, and Sky slowly nodded his head. "Mhm, they are. There’s four types, Fey of Summer, of Fall, of Winter and of Spring. Well, there’s also Fey of the Day and Fey of the Night, but those don’t live in the Fairy Forest." Sky explained, before continuing to speak about Fairies because he noticed that both Eisen and Evalia seemed pretty interested.

"Erm... I think how it went was that back when Fey were first given life, there were six clans, one for each of the basic elements. Summer was Fire, Fall was Wind, Winter was Earth, and Spring was Water. Of course, Day was Light and Night was Darkness. The Queen was a special existence, and the first Fey in existence, and she wasn’t bound to a single element, but had all four of the ’Physical’ elements. She ended up uniting the six clans of the seasons within the Fairy Forest. The Queen’s two Children were born respectively with the Light and Darkness elements for some reason, and they started leading the Fey of Day and Night, because those Fey didn’t have as much of an elemental connection with the Fey. Then later, they went to war with each other, and the Clans of Day and Night were banished from the Fairy Forest." Sky slowly explained, and it seemed like as he was telling this story to them, the scene on the pages gradually changed to show exactly what Sky was talking about at the time. That seemed to happen because the story Sky just told them was the story that he wrote on the pages, and the book reacted to the fact that Sky was speaking about it.

"Alright, yeah, this book is really amazing..." Sky added with a smile when he noticed these changes as well, and Eisen just once more chuckled. "Well, without an Element as Amazing as yours, that would never be possible either." The old man replied to him, and Sky just began to smile as he looked at the pen in his hand as well.

"Oh, and I was wondering, but why are you making Thul and Stahl make Ink?" Sky asked, seemingly wanting to change the topic, because while he felt somewhat nostalgic and happy while talking about this, Sky at the same time felt pretty bitter and sad about everything as well, and Eisen caught onto that fact and began to move his fingers through his beard.

"Ah, you see, her magic Paint has to be used pretty quickly, or else it just disappears, so it’s not good as storage. I was thinking about making some ’Infinite Pens’ with her element before as well that just need mana to write, but that would for one drain way too much mana, and it wouldn’t make it possible to use special types of Ink like metallic or crystallic ones, and my hope is that it will be possible with Thul’s Ink. After all, your magic should just be strengthened even more with the help of those special types of Ink." Eisen explained with a smile on his face, and Stahl ended up slightly nodding, although he next just scratched his cheek and held the pen into the air, before writing a word there through sorcery, although the writing was ink-black, and Eisen looked at the Fey-Kin surprised.

"Well, I can do this kind of stuff with my element already as well, so I guess... I do need Ink for it though, because my element basically just ’carries’ the Ink and breathes life into it, so with a type that was more fit to casting magic, rather than being the product of magic, that would surely be rather useful." Sky said with a smile, before taking the small bottle of ink that he had next to him, moving it along the lines that he drew to put it back into the bottle so that he wouldn’t waste it.

"I wasn’t aware you could do that!" Eisen exclaimed with a smile, and Sky chuckled slightly, "Yeah, I know, I recently ranked my element up to 3, so I became able to then. It’s probably supposed to synergize with Scribing and Sorcery, although I don’t directly know how I should cast stuff like that... I mean, I get how to do Sorcery, but I doubt I’m supposed to juse use it for normal sorcery." Sky explained to them, and Evalia seemed to have a pretty good idea.

"Oh, I think I know. You see, with my Magic, I can do something similar and paint into the air. I managed to do it only a few times before cause I didn’t have many chances to practice, but when I create a painting in the air like that an’ then activate it, I can affect the world to be more similar to my painting, so I can create small things out of elemental magic, or cause buffs and debuffs. I think you might be able to do something similar, just through writing." She explained, and Sky scratched the back of his neck and chose to just try this out then.

Slowly, he began to write into the air with his element and the Ink in his pen, and chose to describe a small ball of water to float in the air in front of him. And when he activated it, a small, fist-sized sphere of water was formed out of the letters, although that ball of water dropped to the ground immediately.

"It works!" Sky exclaimed excitedly and looked to the side at Evalia with a smile, although, at the sight of that Sorcery, Eisen started feeling a slight headache. And as the old man rubbed the bridge of his nose, he looked at Sky.

"Erm... Right now, you used a whole sentence... Now, try to just write ’Water’ to cause that effect with an image in your head." Eisen suggested, and confused but rather excitedly, Sky did so, and the exact same thing happened, and the sphere was the exact same size, even if the water seemed to drop to the ground quicker than before.

"Eh? Wasn’t that far more efficient?" Sky asked surprised, and Eisen nodded his head, still trying to rub away that pain. "Yes, I figured so. It’s still sorcery, it works largely with the image in your mind, right? I think you should try to think more abstract... The sentence you wrote was ’A Sphere of Water Floats in Front of Me’, but you didn’t specify where it floats in front of you. Ten centimeters, ten meters, it didn’t matter. Same with the size, you didn’t say how large it was supposed to be, you did all of that with the image in your mind. I’m sure you could try to reduce that same sentence to ’Floating Water Sphere’ and get the exact same effect, but you’ll have more freedom. You use less mana and Ink, but can fully concentrate on the distance and size of the sphere, but you won’t need to worry about the action, element, or shape." Eisen told Sky in a rush of information, saying all of this as if it was just a fleeting thought in his mind, although he wasn’t sure where that information came from. After all, Eisen’s own Sorcery Skill was at Rank 0, Level 1, and he himself wasn’t necessarily all that interested in it. But even then, Eisen had a weird understanding of how Sky should use his own version of Sorcery.

Did it come from his understanding of Enchanting? Or was it just weirdly obvious in the end, and others thought that it was too obvious?

Either way, the Pain in Eisen’s head became stronger, and it wasn’t a pain that he had felt while within the game at all, at the very least not to this level. He felt a little whoozy sometimes, but nothing at the level of what it was at the moment.

Although, it seemed like Eisen wasn’t the only one that was reacting weirdly to something. Evalia, who had been leaning up against the table and holding her body up with her arms just so slightly collapsed for nothing but a moment, as if she lost the strength in her arms and legs momentarily.

Eisen himself wasn’t feeling that bad, it was just a strong migraine but nothing all that horrible, so he was more worried about Evalia because such sudden loss of strength shouldn’t happen within a game like this. And after helping Evalia sit down on a chair, Eisen made his way out of the Dungeon and quickly stepped down the stairs to the main deck to see if something was going on, noticing that Jyuuk, Evalia and Brody were currently on the main deck as well, although they were all reacting pretty weirdly as well.

Xenia and Jyuuk were holding onto the Railing as if they lost their strength momentarily as well, and Jyuuk and Brody were rubbing their foreheads as if they were having a migraine as well, although Brody’s seemed a lot worse considering his expression.

Behind him, Eisen could hear that Evalia was stepping down the stairs as well, apparently the physically weakest of all of them at the moment. Eisen wanted to protest and tell her to sit down, but he couldn’t at the moment. All that he and the other Originals could do was stare forward toward the Islands they were closing in on.