From the door behind Eisen, a man accompanied by two guards stepped inside this room. The man seemed to be around fifty, maybe 60 years old. He was wearing clothes that were of pretty high-quality and worth, with a lot of silk parts. He even wore a thick red silk cape on his back. Gold and platinum rings covered his fingers and had different precious gems set into them, while the same was also the case for the necklaces, earrings, and other sort of extravagant jewelry that this man was wearing.

Actually, he was wearing so many accessories that Eisen was pretty sure he did this just to brag to those around him. Eisen himself wore jewelry like that, so he knew how uncomfortable it got when you just kept on adding more and more onto your hands or neck.

Well, either way, the man stepped further into the room with the two guards behind him. It was obvious he wasn't here to free the former Eisen, who was locked up here for whatever reason.

The man stepped up to the small pedestal in the center of the room and then simply looked upward.

"Are you ready to tell us of your secrets now, beast?" The man asked, but Eisen just scoffed in response, "Who're you calling a beast? I'm a half-monster, sure, but you know that Giants aren't beast-types, right?" Eisen asked with a loud laugh, but the man didn't seem even nearly as amused as Eisen was.

"Silence! It matters not! Tell us why you are here in this kingdom and how you can create Rank 8 items!" The man exclaimed, and the former Eisen simply let out a deep sigh.

"With rank 8 crafting skills, obviously. And by the way, your information seems outdated. I managed to make the first rank 9 item the other day."

The man seemed quite angry at this idea, for some reason. It seemed only logical to Eisen, "Insolence, stop speaking of impossible things, you monstrosity! What kind of wicked magic are you using to trick the minds of the people! It is common knowledge that the highest achievable skill rank is 7!"

"Well... Yeah, for most people. Because after rank 7 you need to meet specific requirements to rank it up again. They're hidden requirements of course, and different for everyone, but you should meet them after a while. Hell, it took me 5 years to even figure mine out. If you just unshackle me, we can try and-"

"Stop it with those wicked lies! If the craftsmen that I myself scouted cannot achieve this, certainly no abomination like you can! Born out of hatred after a poor woman was ravaged by a wild giant! Why should you be chosen to reach this height by the gods?!"

Suddenly, the current Eisen felt a shiver run down his spine in anger. He could hear the former Eiisen try and pull on the chains as he leaned forward a bit, his face suddenly being illuminated just so slightly by the flames produced by the item that the man was holding, "I dare you to say that again. My parents loved each other. They were disgustingly lovey-dovey all the time, even. My father was more caring than what I came to expect from a parent, and he was one of the kindest men I have ever known. I will not let you run his memory through the mud. If you dare, I will chain you up like you did with me and make you watch as I bring this kingdom of yours to ruin. Understood, you bug?"

The current Eisen stared at himself as he spoke these words, not having expected such a threat in a situation like this. The force that came with the old man's words was so strong that the man in front of the pedestal even fell to the ground, shivering all over his body in fear. But then, once his mind managed to recover a bit again, the man simply started to laugh.

"D-Do you not understand the situation you are in?! You, destroy us? You were unable to stop us from capturing you, so how do you expect to destroy us?!"

"Hm? Do you really think you actually captured me? With Below-Average Quality chains? Sure, they're rank 6, but... you should have at least come with Rank 7, Perfect Quality chains if you wanted to have a chance. The only reason you managed to capture me is because you threatened to kill an innocent child's family because they ate the food I made them."

"O-Of course! Those that fraternize with monstrosities like you are as bad as they are themselves!"

"...Weird, I swear that I saw a few tamers amongst your soldiers. Is that different?"

"It is incomparable, of course! Tamers control the beast, they don't treat them as their equal!" The man retorted, and Eisen just sighed out deeply.

"Fine. Alright, what do you want to know? I can tell you the process that I had to personally go through to rank my first skill up to 8 and test a few things out yourself, or you can keep trying to convince yourself that I'm lying and waste your time." The former Eisen pointed out, and the man in front of him simply glared back at him, "Hah, do you truly think that I would fall for such wicked tricks? Nay. Spend your time here to keep thinking about your sins, you abomination."

Immediately, the man turned around and left the room again, leaving Eisen alone now. The current Eisen was a bit surprised at what exactly was going on at the moment, but for the most part, he managed to figure out the rough sequence of what happened.

The former Eisen travelled to this country, probably in search for new materials or crafting methods, and then made a rank 8 item. Someone found out about this after inspecting that item, and then informed the King of this fact. The King tried to then meet Eisen, and somehow found out that he was a half-Giant, most likely because Eisen was working on something that required him to change his size. And of course, since Giants were monsters, it made sense that not too many people were all that keen on them.

Currently, Giants may be treated as Demi-People, meaning that they are technically monsters but practically have the same legal rights as any person does, but back in the day, that most likely wasn't the case just yet. Eisen never really thought about this before, though, so it was a weird feeling to be suddenly faced with it like that. On the other hand, it was just as weird to see a person like that be a king. Sure, he wore fancy clothes and had precious jewelry on him, but... it was all incredibly rudimentary.

It was like the only thing that made anything on him fancy in the slightest were the materials. There wasn't any particularly great craftsmanship. As if in this day and age, the only thing people knew how to do was to cheat the system to make high-rank items by using the best-possible items. Since Quality, for the most part at least, didn't affect the raw performance of items that much, the aim was most likely to just make any item of the highest rank possible even if the quality was low.

Eisen knew that this worked, technically, but it just felt wrong. Items with a lower quality would break and generally deteriorate much quicker than those of higher quality. On top of that, there were a lot of hidden aspects related to items that were affected by the quality that would change how well you could utilize an item in the long-term.

As a craftsman, Eisen was nearly disgusted by that sort of craftsmanship. No wonder people only reached up to Rank 7 here. Although, it did come as a surprise that even Eisen was only able to reach Rank 8 at this point. It seemed like currently, the Eisen in this memory was about 350, at max 400 years old. He expected that he would have reached a higher rank by now.

But even though all this was the case, Eisen didn't have all that much time to think about it as the door behind him opened up again, and the same man as before, albeit in a different outfit and with other jewelry, that in no way was all that different to the items he was wearing before, stepped into the room.

Once more, he was accompanied by two guards as the King stepped up to the pedestal in the center of the room, ready to speak to Eisen again.

"Good morning, Beast." The King said in an emotionless tone, and the former Eisen let out a deep sigh, "I told you not to call me beast, you brat."

"Well, it matters quite little what you told me to do and not to do. The day of your execution draws near, remember?"

"Mhm, I do. But before then, do you really not want me to tell you the 'secret' to reaching rank 8 actually rather easily? I don't want it to become lost and time and have this whole world be filled with complete degenerates." The old man pointed out, and the King scoffed in response.

"We will not try and learn from your wicked tricks, beast. It would be better if you finally understood this fact. Time and time again you have tried to trick us, but it never worked. You should just give up."

"...You really are a dumbass. Just asking, but by the time that I'm executed, you'll let that family go, right?"

"Of course, we will no longer restrain them. I can promise you that much." The King replied. Somehow, Eisen didn't really believe this man's words, as if he already kind of knew what was about to happen. It was like Eisen wanted to warn his former self not to trust the king, but even he didn't believe the King, most likely. He wasn't an idiot, after all.

But what else was he supposed to do, if the King was holding those people hostage? As far as Eisen was concerned, he would probably just wait until he managed to see the family, and if they really aren't going to be let go, Eisen would break out and try and save them.

Eisen didn't know why his former version wasn't already trying to do that, though. There was probably more to this than met the eye, if the old man had to guess.

And then, while an eery feeling built up within Eisen, he watched as the King turned back around and made his way out of the room.