Finished with testing The Destroyer, Thomas and Snowlily started making their way to the city. While they were walking, Snowlily sniffed the air and frowned, "Someone else is coming now."

Thomas came to a stop and set his hands on his weapons. The pair waited silently until a man wearing a familiar-looking black hooded cloak appeared. Thomas immediately drew his katana and started channeling mana into it. Snowlily lifted her hands and started channeling her mana causing fog to appear and drift down from her raised hands. Seeing the aggressive posture of the two people in front of him, the man in the cloak raised his hands and called out, "Wait! Wait! Don't attack!"

He quickly pulled down his hood to reveal his face. He was a middle-aged man with gray hair just beginning to appear at his temples. He looked between the silent pair. His eyes finally came to a rest on Thomas, "You should be expecting me. My master spoke with you about making something for us..."

Thomas eyed the stranger, "Who's your master?"

The man looked uncomfortable and shifted from foot to foot, "I can't say but my Master was right, you do tend to stay inside of the city walls most of the time. I had to wait out here for two days for you to leave so I could approach you."

After he finished speaking, the man opened his robe and pulled out a rolled-up parchment, "My Master wants you to make this."

Thomas sheathed his katana but drew his Peace Maker while he approached the man to take the parchment. As he unrolled it he began to look over it. The writing contained a drawing and directions for creating a large two-handed sword. It listed everything needed for the sword itself as well as the enchantment desired on it. The sword was the epitome of 'evil weapons' in design and looked rather stereotypical, right down to the skull design on the crossguard. After he finished looking it over, he turned to the man, "I can make it. Will you be providing the materials or do I need to track them down?"

The man reached around his neck and lifted up an amulet with a ruby-like gem placed in the center, "My master has provided enough material to make the sword three times, just in case you fail once or twice. My master also gave me gold with which to pay you when the work is finished."

When the man held the amulet out to Thomas, Thomas accepted it, "I'm too busy to make it just yet. I plan to head to Kafla in a few days. I'll make it there. Give me... let's say two weeks to get it made."

The man nodded and turned to leave. Clearly he didn't doubt that Thomas would do as he said. Though not because he trusted Thomas. After the man was out of sight, Thomas holstered his Peace Maker and wore the amulet around his neck beneath his clothing. He'd check it out later. He resumed heading back to the city with Snowlily in tow. As they got closer, Thomas came to a stop and looked at Snowlily, "Before we get back, you'll need to change back to your wolf form."

Snowlily nodded while Thomas conjured up a stone dome for her to change inside of. When she was done he stored her clothing back inside of his inventory. He hated having to ask her to be in her wolf form if she didn't want to be, but he couldn't risk any extra trouble coming because of it. The two companions arrived at the gates of the city without any additional incidents. As they were entering the city, Thomas was subjected to the orb used to detect crimes. Like always, he was clean. Shooting the man in the woods had been an act of self-defense.

Still, he did notice something that a less moral individual could take advantage of. Snowlily wasn't checked for any crimes. Because she was in her wolf form, Snowlily was considered an animal and couldn't commit crimes. If she changed to her human form and committed a crime then turned back to a wolf, she would get off scot-free. He had no plans to take advantage of that though. He had no qualms with killing people trying to kill him but cold-blooded murder wasn't really his thing.

Once they were inside the city, Thomas led them to a local alchemy shop to pick up some dye to color his equipment and weapons. Like any decent game, customization of the player's avatars was a big feature and allowed for freedom of expression in regards to their looks. He selected several different colors to use. He started with matte colors selecting black, dark gray, light gray, red, blue, and purple. He also got glossy black and red dyes. With all of his purchases made, he looked down at Snowlily with a grin, "Alright, where are we going for lunch?"

Snowlily's tail immediately began to wag as she stuck her nose in the air and sniffed around. With a yip, she started leading Thomas through the streets in the direction of something that smelled delicious. Thomas followed along and as could be expected, Snowlily led him to a wonderful restaurant filled with delicious food. The two of them enjoyed a wonderful lunch together, though Snowlily planned to complain later about the vegetable medley that Thomas ordered for them both.

Once their lunch was over, Thomas led Snowlily back to the Inn and to their room. He set out some of her clothing and stepped outside so she could get changed. Once she was done, he stepped back inside and got to work. He'd meant to do this earlier but he'd been getting distracted and rushing to get stronger. Since he was taking today off, it was the perfect time to put the final touches on his new equipment. The process of actually applying the dye to equipment was extremely easy thanks to the assistance of the system. It was designed that way to make it easy for anyone to dye their equipment.

With the door to the room door closed and locked, he started pulling out his armor and weapons so he could dye them. He dyed all of the armor pieces with the same motif. The base color he chose was matte dark gray with light gray highlights along the edges. The enchantments were dyed purple so they would glow that color when powered up. For his katana, he dyed the entire sheath glossy black while leaving the blade alone. For The Destroyer, he died the pistol grip, body, and butt of the rifle matte black. For the barrel and bolt assembly, he went with the dark gray. He dyed the enchantments on the body of the rifle blue while the enchantments on the magnetic rings were changed to red.

Snowlily quietly watched Thomas go about his work. When he put the finishing touches on the last item she stared at him, "I want something amazing like that thing."

Thomas held up the destroyer and sighed, "I wish I could but it seems like anytime I make something like this it becomes soulbound to me. I can make you other weapons later though." He looked at her, "When we get to the next city you can stay in your human form more and I'll make you some weapons. We'll also have to find a trainer in the city to teach you the skills to use the weapons. I'd teach you myself but I don't have the skill at the moment."

He stored The Destroyer back inside of his inventory and sat on the bed next to Snowlily, "You'll be able to learn a lot of things and we can even get you your own inventory to store things inside of. Until then..." He took one of his storage rings off and emptied it out before passing it to her, "You can put stuff inside of this. Like some of your new clothing." To help facilitate his suggestion, he pulled some of her clothing out and set them on the bed.

Snowlily seemed overly excited about her new toy and immediately put it on her finger. The ring automatically adjusted its size to fit her much smaller finger. Once she had it on she started stuffing her clothing into it while smiling brightly. Thomas chuckled as he watched Snowlily playing with the ring by putting things in and taking them out repeatedly. She seemed fascinated with the little trinket. It didn't have a huge amount of space but she also didn't own all that much at the moment. As he watched her, he pulled some gold out of his inventory and set it down on the bed, "You can have this too. Just like the last time I gave you gold, you can spend it on anything you want."

Snowlily looked at the gold with stars in her arms before squealing in delight and leaping up to wrap her arms around Thomas's neck to hug him. Thomas smiled and hugged her back, "Glad you like it all. After I turn in all the mana crystals we've been gathering in the dungeon, I'll give you some more."

He'd given her a thousand gold for the time being. With all the monsters they'd killed in the dungeon, he had thousands of small mana crystals stored away. Soon even his expanded inventory would be filled but since they had a couple of hours before dinner, he decided to fix that. He pat Snowlily on the head, "I'm going to work on something for a bit. You can relax until it's time for dinner."

Snowlily nodded excitedly and went back to playing with her storage ring and new items. She really seemed to like playing with the small gold coins. Thomas relaxed on the bed and began rotating between expanding his inventory and recovering his spent mana with Serenity. Thanks to constantly repeating the same actions, his two skills were growing at a phenomenal rate. Later tonight, after dinner, he would spend the over four hundred thousand experience he'd earned the day before and make himself even stronger. At the rate he was gaining experience it would only be another day or two before he reached the King class.

For hours he went through the process of expanding his inventory. If he kept it up, he'd end up with a nice massive inventory to store things inside of. When dinner time rolled around, he put a stop to his expansion and looked at Snowlily. She was laying down on the bed relaxing while playing with a gold coin. Thomas was glad that she was so relaxed and easily entertained. If he had to entertain her like a real child he would be in deep trouble! After climbing off of the bed, he turned to her, "Alright, get changed and we'll go down to dinner. Tomorrow we head back into the dungeon."

After Snowlily changed back into her wolf form, Thomas was surprised to find that the storage ring had grown in size and was now more like a bracelet that rested above her ankle. If he'd known it could do that, he would have given her one sooner. As they arrived down in the dining room, Thomas spotted the rest of the group and joined them at their table. He was all smiles as he looked them over, "So, how was your day?"

The girls all looked at each other then turned back to Thomas. Their only reply was sly smiles on each of their lips. Getting no reply from them, he just shrugged his shoulders and ordered dinner for himself and Snowlily. He ordered her an extra helping of steak. The group had an enjoyable dinner together chatting and joking as it grew later. Eventually, it was time to call it a night so they could all wake up refreshed and ready for the dungeon. Everyone was growing much stronger so no one had any complaints about the days spent underground in the gloomy place.

When he got to their room, Thomas sat on the bed and pulled up his character sheet to take a look at his progress. His skills had gone up a fair bit but it was the experience he was most interested in. Thankfully, he didn't have to think about it much and just started to increase his attributes evenly. He only stopped increasing his attributes when they reached four-hundred and thirty-six each. He still had a little over fourteen thousand experience left but it wasn't enough to increase all four attributes. His gains this time hadn't been as much as last time but that was only to be expected. With everything set, he confirmed the changes.

His whole body fell down on the bed as a wave of soothing energy coursed through his veins and reinforced his body to increase his power. He let out a groan as he felt every aspect of his body increase in strength. The soothing warm feeling lulled him off to sleep. As he was drifting off, he briefly wondered if he was growing addicted to the feeling.

The morning came quickly and the group returned to the dungeon to teleport down to the thirty-seventh floor. The monsters were starting to become exponentially stronger making diving down deeper a slog. Still, the experience more than made up for the effort of slaughtering the monsters. Thanks to his armor, katana, and partners, Thomas had little issue taking down monsters. Still, it took them half the day to fight their way to the stairs leading down to the thirty-eighth floor of the dungeon.

They took their lunch break in the saferoom. The monsters they would be fighting on this floor were two and a half meter tall monsters known as Gnolls. Gnolls were massive musclebound monsters that looked like humanoid hyenas. They had a pack mentality and hunted in groups using complex tactics to take down their prey. In the wild, they were even known to set traps to catch their prey while the more intelligent ones even acted as bandits and raided caravans traveling through their territory.

Fighting the Gnolls proved more difficult than expected. They didn't fall for Miverva's provocations and ignored her when they could to target weaker looking members of their party. The Gnolls also used tactics during their fights, crude as they might be. When one of their members was caught out, another would help block the incoming attack from the group. Their decent teamwork slowed down the pace at which the group could slaughter them. Though it was a bit more difficult and took longer, the party still managed to slaughter their way deeper into the floor. It wasn't without cost though. They needed to take breaks often to recover their stamina and mana to make sure they didn't grow weak and start taking dangerous injuries.

It was annoying but with no healer in the party, they had no choice but to take their time. There was no telling if they would be able to find the stairs leading down to the next floor before night fell. They pushed on though, even if they didn't find the stairs, they mapped the floor so they could find their way back to the saferoom at the beginning of it. Either way worked for Thomas as his experience continued to rack up.