763: Demon-Seeking Compass

Demon-Seeking Compass

Eisen held the two central aspects of the compass in his hands. He grabbed the crystal core holding the spatial gem and quickly compressed it down to place it into the central casing of the compass' needle, quickly expanding it again until he was sure that everything was tightly set in place. Already, just moving the needle around in his hand, the spatial gem in the center stayed perfectly still, showing that this part of what Eisen wanted would work, at least.0

The next part was going to involve the creation of the outer casing, which was needed as a reference for the centerpiece. He placed his hand onto his forge, and changed the shape of this permanently-deployed magic, turning it into something more useful as a glassblowing furnace. He stepped over toward one of the shelves in the room, taking out some bottles filled with fine, glittering powders of different shades in each of them, as well as the barrel with pre-mixed limestone and sand standing right next to the shelf. Bringing both of them over, Eisen quickly mixed them together. The fine powders in the bottles were ground-down mana-crystals and gems. For most purposes, he liked to mix in mana crystals, since it would improve the durability of the final glass immensely. It was near impossible to destroy mana crystals through normal means, after all, and that property would be taken on by the glass itself to a certain extent. In one of the other bottles was the powder of ground-down spatial gems, while the rest of the bottles held other crystals and gems that would help improve the flow of mana through the glass to simply make it a better conductor for enchantments.

Eisen mixed everything together in a bowl made of his mana, and quickly placed it into the heated forge, making sure that everything was mixed together properly by using transmutation. Once everything had molten down into glass, Eisen got rid of the bowl made of his mana, and quickly started working with Bai, its body formed into a glassblowing pipe. The molten glass moved over the end of the pipe, and Eisen quickly got to work. While twisting the pipe, he pushed air into the glass to blow it up into a bubble. Once he got the base shape and size for the bubble down, the old man continued twisting the pipe and shaping the glass, adding more air into the bubble to make sure it kept its shape while he created an even thickness of glass all the way around the bubble. Soon enough, he was able to detach the pipe from the glass, and instead held it in his hands. Even now, although some of his memories of his work had returned, it was still quite surreal to hold something like this with his bare hands, even if it didn't hurt him anymore.

Either way, Eisen quickly moved on from that feeling, and finished up the bubble. Once he finished closing it up, Eisen let the bubble cool down a bit, making sure to control the temperature with his mana. Not by much, for now, he just needed the glass to harden a little bit before he placed it into the annealer. If the glass was too soft, it would turn into an oval at some point, instead of staying spherical.

Of course, even then, Eisen quickly changed the annealer's internal shape to be a sphere, making sure it rotates constantly, but he wanted to be doubly safe. It didn't take long until the glass bubble had cooled down enough for Eisen to work with it without needing to worry about its shape.

As he held the hollow glass orb, which would just be barely large enough for Eisen to fully stretch his palm out inside of it, he watched as Bai turned into a carving needle again. As his mana flowed into the needle, he pressed it against the surface of the glass bubble and started to work. This enchantment was simply the second part to the enchantment on the spatial gem from before, and would act as the reference for said gem. As such, that part of the enchantment wasn't too complicated. But again, Eisen added a few more aspects to the enchantment. Mainly, it was an enchantment to read the rotation of the shell surrounding the spatial gem in the center. He could then have the angle be directly displayed on the glass in a dedicated, circular spot. This part was actually a bit more complicated than Eisen thought at first, since he had to take the rotation of the bubble itself into account as well, so that the enchantment could properly calculate the final information in a useful value. It was to the extent where Eisen had to take a few breaks and take some notes, going through a few test scenarios to see if the enchantment would work properly.

Once he confirmed everything to be in order, Eisen filled out the enchantments. The parts dedicated directly to being a reference for the gem in the center were of course filled with a spatial gem, while Eisen filled the rest, the parts dedicated to reading the information, with the special crystal-mixture meant exactly for information-related processes. After the bubble was done, he quickly covered the outside in a very thin layer of a completely translucent protective coating and quickly let it dry. And now, it was time to place the needle into the glass orb. For that, Eisen would usually open a quick hole in the surface through transmutation, but he wanted to try something else.

By playing around with his item storage ability, he managed to increase his precision in summoning it a lot, and even figured out a way to use it in item creation, at least in theory. Now, he tested if it worked in practice. Using his item storage, he could take away specific materials into that sub-space, and he could also place it onto a wall without it actually intruding on the space beyond, or destroying the wall in any way. Using these principles, he was able to simply displace the half of the orb into the item storage for a few moments, affecting nothing else in the process and technically keeping everything intact. However, it still allowed Eisen to place the needle into the leftover half of the orb, before making the other half re-appear. And just like that, the needle was in the bubble. Quickly, Eisen poured his mana into the enchantment to start it up. Quickly, the spatial gem in the center reacted and it snapped into place, the quick motion making the needle around it quickly twirl around the center randomly. Of course, after a while, it would still slow down, but that would take a considerable amount of time.

Eisen played around with this for a while, making sure that the needle's movement truly wasn't affected by the movement of the glass orb, so that only the smoke would be able to affect its movement. After he was satisfied with the outcome of the item, Eisen left the portable workshop for now, quickly making his way back to the private bedroom that this large space was adjacent to, and found Kirisho, holding the crystal ball containing the smoke.

"I was just about to come to you." Kirisho said with a soft smile, "I think it is complete for now. I might have to continue giving it impulses like this every once in a while, but it seems like the smoke is trying to search out more mana. Of course, it doesn't work inside of this dungeon."

"Right, perfect. Thank you for your help, Kirisho." Eisen said with a smile, grabbing the crystal ball from her while looking into her smiling, gleeful eyes, glad to see that Eisen's mood improved at least a little, "It's my pleasure, Eisen." She replied, soon turning her head toward the object that Eisen was already holding onto.

"And what is that, exactly?" The mist spirit asked, and Eisen quickly replied, "This is a compass. I'm going to place the smoke into it, and its going to pull the needle into the direction of where it wants to go, which should be the closest place with mana similar to its own." He said, taking the small crystal tube out of his apron's pocket. Eisen pressed the tube's tip onto the orb containing the smoke, and opened a path for it to travel. The old man compressed the smoke down further until it was tightly inside of the tube. Luckily, just having the tube on his palm, he could feel the smoke try and tug away into random directions, trying to find the right mana.

The old man used the same trick as before, removing part of the compass' outer casing so that he could place the tube into its slot in the needle. It fit into it perfectly and tightly. Eisen slightly adjusted the metal piece acting as counter-balance for the front of the needle's weight by shaving away some metal using transmutation, and then closed the compass back up. Immediately, Eisen was able to confirm it; the needle moved around smoothly and quickly, and the small field on the glass orb properly displayed the cardinal direction and vertical angle that the needle was pointing at.

With a satisfied expression, the old man looked at the compass and acknowledged this item as finished.

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[Demon-Seeking Compass]

[Quality – Perfect][Rank – 6] 

[Description] A compass created by the Godly Craftsmaster Eisen. It holds a fragment of a True Demon's magic, which is used to search for either more fragments or the location of said True Demon. Due to its unique construction method, it functions not just like a normal compass, but even shows an accurate elevation for the target's location. However, since it uses the powers of a True Demon to work, it can only be powered by the mana of another True Demon.

[Effect] {Long-Range Target Search}

[Requirements] Be a {True Demon}

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"Hm... it seems like it's going to work. We'll just have to test it out later." Eisen said, as he quickly proceeded to place the compass into his item storage until he left the dungeon later on. He looked at the orb for a while before closing the item storage, deep in thought.

"So, do you have an idea of what to do next? I doubt you will dedicate all your time to trying to find that Demon, right?" Kirisho asked, finally pulling Eisen away from the smoke again. With a wave of his hand, the old man closed the item storage, nodding his head, "You're right, I won't be doing that. I'm planning on continuing the intended travel through some parts of this continent. And then, every once in a while, I'm going to note down the direction that it's pointing at. That way I can find some rough locations to investigate further on my own time at some point."

"On your own time? Even though you weren't even allowed to come here without a few dozen guards?" Kirisho asked, but Eisen just lightly chuckled, "I played along for now because at the end of the day, this was still all for diplomacy at that point. I had to keep up appearances, and act like a proper king. But once that part of this trip is over, I won't be here as the King of Asgard, but as a man trying to find a being that toyed with his life, and the lives of those he cherished. I won't let anyone stop me from that, even if they mean well." The old man said bluntly, his eyes overflowing with anger and malice toward that Demon.

"Well, even then, you won't be truly alone, will you?" Kirisho pointed out, and Eisen looked down at her with a soft smile, trying to ignore the hatred filling his mind, "Of course. I will have all of you by my side for all of it." He said, knowing full well that he was lying. After all, if he ended up encountering that Demon again, he couldn't bring the others along. He didn't know what sort of powers it might have. Eisen himself couldn't die in this world, but the others... even if some of their lives were linked to him and he could bring them back if he needed to... he couldn't bear watching any of them die. 

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