Chapter 847: Adapting

"Yes alright, exactly that. Follow the grain a little closer there, maybe," Eisen suggested to Parc, as he was watching his apprentices work. With a quick nod, Parc corrected his course ever so slightly, "Remember, this isn"t directly about your technique, but being able to understand the specific peculiarities of the material you"re working with.

The better your sensibilities become, the more likely it is you will be able to handle higher-quality materials."

"Hm... is it right that I"m changing the pressure in this part here a bit more?" Rouge asked, glancing over at the old man, just double-checking his decision. From what Eisen could tell, that was the case, and he nodded his head.

"If you"re ever not sure, then just take your time to get used to the material a little more. You certainly don"t need to succeed on your first attempt with a new one. But at the same time, try not to waste too much time on it either. Really, it depends on your goal in that moment," the old man explained, sitting down on a stool next to his workbench, "Finding that right balance is rough.

If your goal is to learn and get better at the craft, then you need to decide if the higher level of experience you can gain through the higher rank material is worth the extra time that you"ve used to get it.

And if you want to make the best item you can, you need to see if particularly the risk a.s.sociated with using a material you might not be fully used to cna be made up for through the better quality of the material."

The apprentices listened closely, understanding what Eisen was saying but just silently concentrating on thier work for the time being. And as they did so, the old man turned toward the other, albeit temporary, student that was seated by his side. Eisen had given Ambriel a few general exercises that they could do to get used to the way they should use their tools while carving into the wood.

They were actually getting used to it rather quickly, seemingly having a good eye for matters like this.

Eisen looked at the way that the angel was moving their fingers, and quickly reached out to their hand, "Careful, don"t do it like that," he told them, slowly changing the position of their fingers and the angle of their knife, "I know it might feel a bit more natural to do it that way, but if you"re not careful the knife can slip or get caught in grooves quite easily."

"Oh, uh... okay," Ambriel muttered, carefully trying to get used to this way of holding the knife, and more importantly, trying to figure out what exactly the important difference was between this and what they were doing before.

As they were doing so, Eisen got started with some practice on his own, figuring that he might be some good inspiration for his apprentices. He had gotten his hand on some Rank 9 wood, which certainly wasn"t easy.

He was hoping for Rank 10, but that was sadly not something that was particularly easy to get your hands on, so Eisen and Jyuuk had been talking about continuously breeding trees to finally get to a higher rank at some point, but that was still quite far in the distance.

But even so, even rank 9 materials should give him some more insight. More than anything, he was actually hoping on some insights into crafting techniques or habits that he had developed in the past that could help elevate his work further. And of course, there was another benefit to this.

If he used a material that so clearly could not exist on earth and that even he could struggle with, it might be possible for Eisen to grasp the effect of the craftsmans.h.i.+p skills further. At this point, he decided to embrace the "system resistance" skill instead of fighting it, so using any opportunity he could to learn how to do things without the system was more than welcome.

He pressed Bai against the surface of the wood, and felt a resistance as if he was trying to cut into metal. Of course, he knew that Bai was capable of dealing with this material, so he carefully continued on. He poured some mana into the edge of the knife, and carefully tried to cut across the grain, as his instincts were telling him to with this particular wood. Join us at m-v le mpy_r

No matter what he did, it wasn"t getting particularly easier to handle this material. It was practically fighting back against him with every bit of pressure he placed into it. As though the piece of simple wood had a mind of its own, it was changing the best way to deal with it as the old man used it.

More than anything, he really had to focus his senses to understand the subtle differences in the resistance he was feeling against the edge of his knife and how the wood felt against his hand.

Eisen could feel himself grow more accustomed to the material as he continued working with it, carefully turning it into a simple wooden figure. He wasn"t trying to make anything in particular; that wasn"t the goal of this in the first place. Just like Parc and Rouge, Eisen was trying to learn how to handle materials that were at a much higher rank than his own skill.

And as Eisen continued, the more a sort of muscle memory set in as he himself reacted to the memory. And it wasn"t the regular kind of muscle memory that he always subconsciously made use of when doing basically any of his work, but one that he couldn"t directly remember forming.

It was just coming to him naturally, and it was clear that one of his goals was particularly successful; Eisen was starting to get used to some of the habits and techniques of the former Eisen without even realizing it. Memories popped into his head here and there that he had to sort through, trying to figure out if they were from before the memory-reset, or from after.

Or, maybe even if they were from before Eisen stepped foot into this world for the first time; a memory from when he was still Benjamin, and only Benjamin.

It didn"t take all too long until Eisen finished the small practice piece, a simple carving of something like a mannequin; the blank form of a human, without the influence of any particular traits or characteristics of any form. It was just the size of his hand, but Eisen was quite happy with it, considering the struggle as he got started with this.

Toward the end, it did seem somewhat natural, as though he had grasped this particular material. But of course, just like with Parc and Rouge, the actual specific expertise with a specific material wasn"t the goal of this exercise right now. It was to allow him to more easily read and react to the current state of the material he was working with.

He couldn"t learn and practice with every Rank 9 material in existence, after all, so learning to get used to Rank 9 materials in general was a much better idea. Not to mention that Eisen was hoping that this could translate to some other cratfting disciplines once he got a feel for how materials at this quality reacted to certain matters.

Eisen once more looked up at his apprentices, who were still in the middle of their own practice session. He had been keeping an eye on them this whole time as well, of course, not letting himself get too ingrossed in what he was doing. Parc and Rouge were getting used to things very well too, and were already a lot more confident than they were earlier.

Of course, it would still take a while until they could really adapt themselves to any higher-rank material they came across, but it was certainly a good start for the time being.

Before long, the two apprentices finished their individual pieces, and Eisen took a closer look at their work. He corrected the mistakes they seem to have made, and explained how they could have gone better, particularly explaining it in terms of what the material needed them to do at that point to help them raise their understanding.

But even without that, these two young men were able to understand what mistakes they made without much of an explanation, quickly learning what they should have done instead.

Eisen looked at the two apprentices quite proudly in this moment. He was more than happy that he took them in.