Spending My Retirement In A Game

Eisen ran the knife over the surface of the wood and carved away at it. First things first, he had to get a proper, basic shape for brush-handle. Of course, that was not particularly hard, and within a few minutes, the old man was already done with that.

Then, he moved on to try to figure out what exactly he should turn this brush into when it comes to style. Immediately, he started to visualize something in the air in front of him with the use of his visualization skill. He changed the patterns around, the actual shape, certain details, and things like that.

And it really didn’t take long for Eisen to come up with something good. First, he turned the piece of wood into the regular form that he wanted the brush to have. It wasn’t really all that complex, but just something that would sit in this Soul’s hand properly while he was painting.

But now, the real details came, and Eisen started to slowly carve into the surface of the brush’s handle and created the pattern that he wanted to give it. And that pattern was a simple carving of two serpent-like dragons wrapping themselves around each other in a spiral without leaving any gaps, with their snouts meeting at the tip of the brush.

The old man slowly pushed his hand into one of his chest-pockets and grabbed the small special-paintbrush that he made for himself using Evalia’s element so that he could create magic paint of any color he wanted to. For that, he basically just created a small system where a setting-menu would pop up with a color-wheel in the center of it, as well as a few more different options connected to the quality and texture of the paint. Like that, he could quickly get to work, fed a little bit of mythril to his paintbrush so that he could create metallic paint, and then started to paint the two dragons.

One of them was black with blue shading, and the other one was white with orange shading to its body and scales. The colors were subtle enough so that they wouldn’t be distracting, but still strong enough so that you could immediately see them when looking at the brush.

And then, the old man got to the part with the bristles. He grabbed the item that he used to turn materials, which by now he had minimized as much as he could by placing everything inside of a specialized spatial gem with different input- and output-streams, and quickly got started turning the special ’artist gems’ into threads to use for the bristles. But of course, before then, Eisen dyed the gems different colors. A dark blue that would come out of the white dragon’s mouth, and a light orange that would come out of the black dragon’s mouth.

He created the threads and properly wove them together so that he could just attach them to the brush, even using alchemical softening to make them a bit better as bristles for the kind of brush the soul wanted. Eisen twisted the two colors together so that at the base, they were split apart, but at the tip they had been properly led together.

Using Item Combination and Transmutation, Eisen properly fused the bristles to the insides of the two dragon’s mouths to make it look as if the bristles were their fiery breaths.

The old man looked at this small item in his hands, and then watched as Bai pushed out a needle out of its body after basically reading Eisen’s thoughts. The old man pushed the needle onto the brush, pushed his mana inside, then pulled all of that mana out of the brush to start with the inscription.

The thing about this special ’Artist Gem’ was that this specific combination of crystals and gems had a specific synergy with each other when it came to innate effects. And right now, Eisen was looking at those effects.

Waves of any color Eisen could think of were twisting and twirling around each other, and in general, there was just a wave of chaos in front of Eisen’s eyes. But that was exactly something that just made it beautiful. The colors didn’t mix into a muddy mess, but simply shifted their tone after mixing with each other to be even more beautiful than before. They created random patterns that were simply nice to look at, or were just a random mess that could make you reminisce of whatever was on your mind, as if you were trying to see a shape in the clouds.

This synergy in itself was what both Evalia and Eisen thought to be a beautiful thing, and something that only this combination of crystals and gems could achieve. And the mythril of the brush’s paint that wasn’t directly part of the combination seemed to just speed all this chaotic movement up even more.

Eisen pushed the tip of his needle against those colors and practically sucked them in together into just a specific point in front of the needle, focusing everything into a marble-sized sphere of chaotic colors.

And then, the old man ran that marble through the two dragons, one after another, focusing the flow of these colors to the front. From the tail to the snout, it now seemed like the white dragon was actually flying, shifting, as if he was alive, while he actually wasn’t.

And when Eisen did the same with the second, it felt like he was just holding two dragons who were performing a dance with each other in his hands. Then, the old man split the rest of this chaotic color-energy into the mouths of the two dragons, and intertwined those two halves with each other at the tip of the bristle, creating the feeling as if it was truly made of fire.

Of course, the brush wasn’t actually changing or shifting in any way, the only thing that was slightly changing were the accent-colors that Eisen added. The orange of the white dragon’s scales and the black dragon’s flames would turn yellow and then green, and the blue of the black dragon’s scales and the white dragon’s flames would turn purple and then red.

Slowly but steadily changing, as if the brush really was alive. And with that, the old man was more than just satisfied. Without the mythril-paint, he probably wouldn’t have been able to transfer this color-changing effect over to the brush’s handle either. For the most part, Evalia liked to use this gem to create paint for herself that she could use for things like color-changing paintings to strengthen them a bit more, so this kind of use in an actual brush wasn’t what it was created for, although it certainly worked.

And since this gemstone would absolutely have no effect on the actual paint that the man would be using, this was really just a small gimmick that Eisen figured would be a bit of a nice touch.

A brush that felt like it was alive, as a gift from the living man that visited heaven. With a satisfied expression, Eisen saw this brush as finished, and gave it a bit of a finishing touch in the area of Effects and Requirements.

[Brush of the heavenly Dragons’ Dance]

[Rank – 6][Quality – Perfect]

[Description] A brush created by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen while he visited the heavens. Due to the intricate carvings on the wood as well as a special material used in the creation, parts of the chromatic accents slowly change and shift over time, giving the illusion that the Dragons may be alive and enjoying their beautiful dance in the hands of an artist.

As it was created in heaven, it has been imbued with holy energies.

[Effect] \u003cArtist’s Possession\u003e Trait, \u003cDragon King’s Holy Aura\u003e Trait

[Requirement] Have this brush be gifted to you by the Dragon King’s Father

Eisen slightly smirked as he looked at the effect and saw that it properly worked. He opened the information screen for this ability.

[Trait] Artist’s Possession

[Effect] If you carry the true will of an artist, and truly only if you do, this will be in your possession always. It will not wear down, it will not degrade, and it will never leave your side as long as you meet the requirements. If you bind your soul to it, you will find it again even in your next life.

[Activation] Constant

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[Trait] Dragon King’s Holy Aura

[Effect] This item constantly gives off a slight holy aura. Unholy beings will be damaged and repelled if they were to touch it. Anything painted with this brush will give off the same holy aura. As it was specifically imbued with the holy energy of the Dragon King’s realm, it will give off holy energy specific to him.

Eisen was happy to see both of these traits being a thing. The first one, he had specifically planned for. The requirement \u003cHave this brush be gifted to you by the Dragon King’s Father\u003e was obviously completely ridiculous, and impossible for most to achieve, meaning that it was possible to create a similarly ridiculous effect.

But luckily, Eisen is going to gift this to the man in front of him, and everything would work out. Since Eisen wasn’t particularly interested in the money that was offered, it should count as a gift if he rejected the money, instead of being seen as something like a commission.

However, the second effect was something that Eisen really wouldn’t be able to do anything about. And he expected something like this from the get-go.

There was no way that an item made in heaven wouldn’t have exactly such effects. But it was fine, everything here had been imbued with that ’holy energy’ anyway, so it wouldn’t make much of a difference.

It would, however, make a difference if the man bound the brush to his soul, which was currently his whole being, and would end up finding the brush after being reborn again in the future. Having something like this then, an item made in heaven, might be slightly important.

It was fine, though, that was something to deal with another time. It was a great item, so that’s all that mattered.

Eisen waved the notifications to the side and soon saw the faces of numerous souls looking at him out of curiousity. They seemed interested in what a living person would craft while in heaven, after all. There was even a relatively small dragon sitting on top of one of the houses’ roofs, staring at the old man.

With a slight sigh, the old man stood up and walked back over to the painter, before handing the brush to him with a smile on his face, "Here you go, the brush you asked for. I hope you like it."