Chapter 673 - Cracking Knuckles

Eisen swiftly cut some high-quality leather into strips that he could wrap around the handles of his tools later. He did do so for some of the tools or weapons already, but even then, Eisen still couldn't finish these as there were other crafting skills that he wanted to use with this. And just to see if there would be some form of benefit to it, the old man figured he should try and go ahead to just use a certain few specific skills in the workshop of the lesser deity that was responsible for it.

He only used Blacksmithing in Jephas' workshop, only used Woodworking in Dirmon's workshop, and right now only used Leatherworking in Hinaja's workshop. It might be a bit of a waste of time to some, since it wouldn't take long to finish most of these items now, but the old man was still curious just for the sake of it.

For now, he really only created some smaller items. He made a small backpack to continue the quest he was given in this realm, and beside that mostly prepared the parts for the different other items that he still had to finish up.

And now, he figured he should work on another thing that he could make as a gift to others that was made of leather. For one, he wanted to make some different shoes for the people still waiting for him in the mortal realm, but he also figured that making some new aprons for everyone, including himself, might be a pretty good idea.

He grabbed the leather that Hinaja suggested he should use, and then laid it out on the large worksurface right in front of him. Eisen overlayed his visualized blueprint for everything onto the leather and proceeded to quickly cut all the pieces out so that he could start with the aprons.

"Oh? What are you making?" Hinaja asked curiously as she leaned over the table a bit. Eisen turned his head toward her while his knife was still gliding through the thick leather, cutting it up.

"Just a few gifts for some friends and my current apprentices." The old man explained. Hearing this, Hinaja raised her brows a bit surprised, "Apprentices..? You've got new ones?" She asked, although Eisen vividly remembered telling her about them just an hour ago while they were chatting.

"Yeah I do. They're quite promising, I have to say." Eisen pointed out. Hinaja looked down at the movements of Eisen's hands and as if mesmerized, replied to the old man, "Oh..? That so..?" 

"Mhm, that so." He said, before bringing up something else that slightly worried him, "I'm sorry if I already knew, but is there a particular reason why you're this tired all the time?" Eisen inquired. The lesser goddess raised her head to look at him and then slowly nodded.

"Yup~... When I was still a mortal, I formed a contract with a couple of people and started supplying them physical energy... You can call it Stamina, essentially. I don't really want to get into it but... At some point, my stamina pool became smaller and smaller, and now I'm here..." Hinaja explained, "But I don't really mind. I like sleep... And I can still work properly, so I don't see any issues here..."

Eisen looked back at the goddess and slowly nodded his head. If she didn't want to get into what exactly happened, then that was fine. This was enough for Eisen to know. At the very least, he did know the most basic part of what happened, she made the active choice to let something like this happen. It was her own responsibility.

It wasn't some sort of tragic accident or that someone stole her stamina from her. It was her own choice that led her here, and while Eisen still felt slightly bad about it, he was pretty sure that Hinaja could so something about this if she really wanted to.

She was a literal goddess. Sure, a Lesser Goddess, but that didn't mean that she didn't have an immense amount of power and authority. Some of the other gods, or maybe even some mortals, would be able to help her out in some way or another.

Maybe Eisen even found a way to do so in the past already, but she maybe declined for all he knew. Eisen didn't really understand why she made a choice like that in the end, why she chose to live like this, but as long as she was happy, Eisen didn't really mind.

He looked back down at the things he was working on, gathering the different pieces for the aprons togehter. For everyone, he chose a slightly different sort of leather depending on their expertise and personality. Simply, things that would fit them better as a person. After all, it was easier for someone to work with a thick leather apron if the person in question was strong, large and heavy, rather than frail, short and light. And some people liked it if an apron like this was heavier, while others liked them to be basically weightless. Eisen focused on all of these aspects as he was making these items. He tried to make sure that everyone received the perfect piece of equipment for themselves, basically.

The old man placed the parts together properly and tried to bundle them up with all of the pieces. For now, he couldn't do anything with this yet, considering that basically every single one of the pieces would end up having some enchantments placed onto them before Eisen could put these together. 

Then, he and the Elemental Spirit brought them over to Eisen's item storage so that he could properly bring them with him to the next workshop. Eisen would come back later when he would put them back together after enchanting them, though, since that was still directly part of Leatherwork, and an important one at that, so he wanted to make sure he did really properly get the right sort of benefits, if there were any, even.

When the old man brought all these parts away, he stretched for a moment and cracked his knuckles to loosen his fingers up again after all of this work.

"...I hate when you do that." Hinaja pointed out with an annoyed facial expression, and Eisen turned toward her surprised, "Hm? Did I use to do this often?" He asked, and the lesser goddess slowly nodded her head in response.

"All the time. And I hate it." She said bluntly as Eisen looked down at his hands, "Fair enough... I don't remember when I started doing this, though, it's kind of always been a passive habit of mine. It helps properly loosen my hands up, although I might be imagining it in the end."

"Probably." Hinaja pointed out as she sat back down on one of the chairs behind her tiredly, closing her eyes with a loud yawn. "I'm tired..." She muttered, and Eisen looked at her with his brows raised.

"You complain about my bad habits, before then lazing around? Is that not somewhat hypocritical?" Eisen asked. Hinaja shrugged, "Probably. But I like sleeping, I don't like hearing your fingers crack. That's the difference."

With a slight sigh, Eisen looked back at the lesser goddess of leatherworking and smiled slightly. Usually, he would find that sort of attitude rather annoying, but when it came to Hinaja, it was weirdly endearing to an extent. Maybe it was because Eisen technically knew her, but he just didn't really remember her yet, but that's what went through his mind at least.

But for now, that mattered very little to Eisen. Because at the moment, he just wanted to make some shoes. Kinds that went with formal suits, or boots that you could wear out on a hike. He wanted to make a few different ones for different occasions and people, so that they would have different sets available to them depending on the situation they were in.

Combat, casual, traveling, anything should be fine and have their own sort of shoe. Well, Eisen walked around barefoot everywhere, so it didn't really matter to him, but even Eisen figured he needed some shoes depending on the situation that could help him out somehow or another.

For examples, the shoes he had when he first met that transcendent monster seemed pretty interesting. In situations where Eisen wasn't able to properly make use of his transformation to just fly away, being able to move around freely anyway sounded like a pretty good thing.

And when Eisen was done cutting out all of the pieces for the shoes, most of which he also still had to enchant before being able to do anything else, he made everything else that he wanted to make. Backpacks, pouches, anything that he could think of really. And since he mostly didn't go beyond cutting out the pieces, he was able to make the parts for alot of different items that he could work on soon.

But at some point, Eisen was finished with what he could do at this place right now. It took him all day to do, though, and at this point, the old man was rather tired from all that work.

He squatted down in the corner of the room and chose to get some rest here. He tried to remember some of the new memories that he had 'unlocked' by now, before logging off and getting something small to eat.

When he came back, Eisen energetically chose to head to the next workshop after telling Hinaja that he would definitely be back soon.

And the next place that Eisen made his way to was the workshop of not the Lesser God of Alchemy Arxcat or the Lesser Goddess of Enchanting Kulox, but rather, it was the workshop of the Lesser God of Glassblowing, Gardaks.

There was a proper reason for that as well, of course. For one, there were a few tools that Eisen wanted to make for himself that he needed for proper Alchemy. Like beakers, glass pipes, and different parts of the whole mechanism.

And of course, Eisen also wanted to make a lot of glass bottles for the different potions that he would definitely end up creating here in this divine realm. After all, he would get the chance to make literally any potions he wanted to with basically infinite amounts of materials, didn't he? He would need quite a lot of proper bottles that he could use to store all of the different liquids he would create.

Eisen could always just harden it and turn it into bricks, but hardening and softening potions repeatedly somewhat diminished the effects of a potion, so he didn't really want to go for that idea.