Spending My Retirement In A Game

Eisen slowly walked up to what seemed to be just a rock at first glance. An egg-shaped rock, but just a rock in the end. It wasn't even all that smooth or anything like that. It was really just an ovaloid rock with a deep brown, muddy, murky color and scent to it.

The old man didn't even really know why he thought this was supposed to be Trygan's egg, he just did. He turned his head over toward the young version of Eisen with a curious expression, "Hm... This doesn't seem to be just a metal..." He muttered to himself, "And Material Appraisal doesn't tell me anything? The hell is this supposed to be?"

The old Eisen looked at the figure of his young self full of curiosity. It really seemed like that old Eisen's abilities, the literal skill-ability sort, weren't the same as Eisen's current ones. And it made sense if he didn't have an amazing appraisal ability like Eisen's truth-seeing eyes yet. Eisen just got it from a Golden Dragon, and at this point in time, the Crystal Dragon king didn't even exist. And the 'real' Dragons only just came to be after Trygan rose to the top and claimed his position as king.

"Oh, could it be a rock lizard egg?" The old, or young, Eisen muttered to himself, "That would be perfect, it's been getting pretty annoying hauling everything out of these caves on my own... I'll have to visit the Appraisal shop, I guess." 

Luckily, Eisen often had a tendency to speak to himself when he was alone, otherwise, he wouldn't really be able to follow along that well. And just as he thought that, Eisen 'really' spoke to himself.

His young version turned toward him and formed a slight grin on his face, "Another long one's comin'."

And all of a sudden, Eisen found that the scenery around him just started to change, and they were now in a rather rudimentary ancient dwarven village. A lot of buildings were still just carved into rock-walls, or boulders were turned into different buildings. Some people apparently even dug into the ground and created things like hatches so that they could access their place.

But Eisne himself just stood right in front of one of the buildings that were carved out out of a boulder. It seemed to be something in the style of something like a stall, with the front just open and facing outward. There was a middle-aged dwarf just sitting there on a stool currently inspecting some different gemstones for whatever reason.

And then, the young Eisen walked up to him and placed a bag of materials down onto the table, "Morning Ahrcheon. Need your help with something."

"Oh? The Great Eisen needs help from me? Can't your eyes inspect anythin' themselves?"

"Well, not really. I have skills to appraise mateirals and items, but this thing is neither. I think it might be a Rock Lizard egg, but I want to make sure before I try and hatch it..."

"Hm... Lemme take a look then, boy." The dwarf said with a grin, and Eisen pulled the egg out of the bag while handing it to him, "I'm thrice your age, so I'd appreciate it if you'd stop calling me 'boy'."

"Show me proof of that statement, and I'll stop. Now, let's get this started, aye?" The appraiser said with a light grin as he looked at the rock-like egg. He knocked on it, smelled it, rubbed its surface, and in the end seemingly appraised it properly. Eisen didn't understand why he didn't do that right from the start, but it didn't matter. In the end, the Dwarf looked at the young Eisen with his brows raised in surprise.

"You've gotten yer hands on somethin' good here! It ain't just a rock lizard, it's a variant! Dunno what kinda variant, but it'll be a good un'! There's already mana gathered in 'ere as well, so it's gonna pop out more powerful than regular rock lizards... You know, if you want, you can sell it-"

"No thanks, I'll just keep it. Maybe I'll be able to properly train this one, all the other rock lizards that I try to buy are just way too wild." The 'young' man sighed and then pushed the egg back into his bag while pulling out a few pieces of metal. It seemed to be something like a pebble made of copper. 

"Here you go, thanks for the help." 

The dwarf clicked his tongue as he stared at the copper-pebble and picked it up with his fingers, "Fuckin' stingy son of a bitch. Ya could tip every once in a while!"

"Right, right, because the fact that I sell my precious gems to you for cheaper than normal isn't enough of a tip." 

Before the real Eisen knew it, the scenery around him changed once more. At this point, he found himself inside of a workshop, that he simply assumed to be his own in the past. It was vastly different to everything else he's seen so far. Instead of just being something that had been roughly carved into a rock, it was a proper workshop like Eisen would still build to this day.

At the very least his taste didn't change. The tools were in great condition, there were plenty of different materials gathered around, and the young version of Eisen was just sitting at a worktable, currently carving something into a mana crystal. It seemed like he was even sitting there with a magnifying-glass right above the mana crystal because he apparently wanted to create some especially small carvings in it. 

And just as that enchantment seemed to have been finished, both the current and former Eisen turned their head in response to the sound of something cracking. It was the egg, which had been placed into a special glass box where it would constantly be supplied with a steady level of heat and protection.

The young Eisen immediately jumped up and rushed over there, slowly squatting down in front of the box, "Is it hatching?" He muttered to himself, and the current Eisen couldn't help himself but be a little bit nervous and excited as well, although it was rather obvious that the creature inside would end up surviving. After all, it had to be Trygan, right?

The old man waited for a little while longer, and soon, a small piece of the shell was fully pushed off of the egg and dropped down. And the only thing that could be seen through that part of the shell was a small snout with the same color and texture as the actual egg.

This confused the old man even more. Maybe this wasn't Trygan after all? Or so he thought, but in the end, after more of the shell dropped down, what was revealed was a small, muddy and murky dragon that could be held in ones hands.

"What...?" The young Eisen muttered all of a sudden, "This isn't a Rock-Lizard... It's got... Wait, is this... Is this a Dragon?" He opened his eyes wide as he slowly picked the small creature up out of the egg and started to clean it up properly, since it was still a bit slimy after just hatching.

And after the small dragon was clean, the former Eisen took a closer look at the tiny creature, "How rare... I've not seen many types of dragons, but what is this kind supposed to be? It doesn't look like a Mountain Dragon hatchling..." The young Eisen muttered to himself, "But really, who'd have thought that I'd randomly find a Dragon egg..."

Slowly, the former Eisen looked to the side, and the current Eisen was also able to see what appeared there. It was a simply notification window telling him that the Rock Dragon Hatchling had been tamed.

"Seriously, a rock Dragon? Is that... a new kind? Did I seriously find a new kind of Dragon?" With a slight laugh and a broad grin on his face, the young man continued to clean the Dragon up a bit, "Hm, I guess you'll need a name, huh? Let's see, what's a good name for a Dragon..?"

It seemed like the former Eisen was trying to think about this intensely, as if it were the most important thing he ever thought about. And well, in the end, it was. After all, this Dragon would end up growing up and becoming the Crystal Dragon King. 

Eisen sat there and waited for his former version to finish his thoughts, until he finally came up with something, "Well, Trygan sounds pretty nice, I think. Sounds like a Dragon name, doesn't it?"

And it seemed like the small Dragon immediately agreed, trying to snuggle up to the young man as he was sitting there at his table.

"Let's hope you grow up big and strong, buddy." 

The young Eisen smiled at the Dragon in front of him while playing around a little more, while the old Eisen couldn't help himself but keep grinning in response to that statement. 'Big and strong' was a bit of an understatement in his opinion.

But soon, the area around Eisen changed again, and a new scene played out in front of him. It seemed like this would end up being a bigger memory again, similar to the memories that Eisen recovered about his fights with Brody.

But it was more than that. It wasn't just snippets out of Trygan's life, it was practically all of Trygan's life as a simple monster.

How he evolved from a Rock Dragon into a Mineral Dragon, from a Mineral Dragon into the first Metallic Dragon, and from a Metallic Dragon into the one and only Crystal Dragon. Throughout none of these memories could Eisen really explain why his evolutions were the way they were. Instead of simply becoming a different variation of Rock Dragon, his 'base' draconic race kept on changing.

But it wasn't really like he actually minded. Trygan grew up and got numerous powerful abilities, many of which he was actually taught by Eisen. Through this, Eisen managed to learn a lot of things about himself as well, even if not nearly enough to get a good picture of what he was like in the end, considering that this was just about the early parts of his life.

Trygan learned abilities to see through lies that Eisen developed himself from different appraisal skills, he learned how to change his own form after watching Eisen change his size and transform himself through his elemental magic.

There were a lot of things that he developed himself, of course, but Trygan was always around Eisen, and continuously improved himself as he kept on watching this aging man.

And just a few decades after Eisen himself seemingly reached the peak, Trygan did as well. And he was allowed to ascend to godhood.