James walked over to Takeda, which was very uncomfortable given his choice in avatar. “Well that was fun.” “Yeah, you handled that loli pretty well.” “Don’t say it like that!” James yelled expressing his dissatisfaction, only for Takeda to laugh.

“Anyway, let me see the helm so I can make a blueprint for it.” James tossed the smooth domed helm to the slender man, who promptly produced a large blueprint for the item. “There you go, now place all the items in your inventory and I will send you back to your guild base. Before you go, did you name your guild yet? You must have because you have a guild base. You should also name those items while you’re here.”

James thought for a moment before giving a small chuckle, “My guilds name is, Freedom.” It was once more Takeda’s turn to laugh, “You have to be kidding me! How American are you?” James simply said, “Merica!” They both shared a great laugh then got back on topic. “As for the helm I will name it, Heimdall, named for the all-seeing protector of Asgard.” Takeda took his long twig like arms and crossed them while rubbing his chin. “Not bad, go on.”

“The staff I will call, Branch from the tree of Renewal. I thought about have something along the lines of friendship as the name, but that just sounded stupid.” James said, not seeing a reason to hold back.

“Super cringy if you ask me, but I like the name you came up with.” Said Takeda, with everything he needed here done he equipped the helm and the staff, placing the blueprint in his inventory. James had a final thought, “Hey Takeda if you can talk to the kobold guy. Please see if you guys can make it so any item made mostly of Celestial Uranium, would be affected in the same way I mentioned earlier.” Takeda simply nodded saying, “I will see what I can do.” and then the world around him shifted.

James found himself at the town center of Mistra. “Cool, now let’s check up on our status.” James opened his status page to see his level had climbed to 23. He also saw that his race had changed back from fallen angel. James was now an Archangel.

Racial Levels

Angel 15 lv

Archangel 3 lv

Job Levels

Fenrir’s Chosen 5 lv

James thought about that for a moment. If he continued up the hierarchy of angels, he would eventually become a seraphim, but could he go farther? Was there a hidden God class?

James was very curious what that would mean for him when he got to the new world. He pushed that thought away for now he had more important things to worry about now. There was still a month till the power armor update went live, but he could probably cut that time down when he got back to work.

James headed toward the large building across the plaza. This building was in the center of the city and was the main operations center for his guild now. James opened his menu for the guild base, admiring the 15 million gold he had received from taking the city with hardly any damages. James looked at the cost of adding an underground portion to the base, 7.5 million gold, it would undoubtably grow higher if he tried adding a floor beneath that.

It gave James a newfound respect for how much Ainz and his guildmates must have spent to add two new custom floors to Nazarick. He clicked to add the underground floor. When prompted to give the floor a name he called it the, “Wolves Den.”

From his menu he began to move many of the wolves he had remaining to the new cavernous second floor of the base. When he got down there it was terribly dark, so he spent an hour and a half a million gold on making the ceiling into an animated mosaic of the sky. Complete with day night cycle and even stars.

He added trees some cave like tunnels with dens in the walls of the second floor, more than enough for now. He set it up so that should the city be attacked that 30% of the Dire Werewolves would move out to defend the city. He looked at the total number of Dire Werewolves he had to work with, 200.

He had no room levels left for any other town’s folk, but that did not matter now. At least this sizable amount of level 25 Dire Werewolves would be able to defend his base for a month or two. That was being generous though. James thought to use his helm on Fenrir’s Howl, so he did. It was then that he noticed several things.

While the helm would even work on world level items, in the blueprint it gave a list of the requirements for crafting the item. The materials, class levels, and sometimes the racial requirements for said levels. Although many of those requirements were blurred out. “Probably because I haven’t encountered those things before.”

While James was unsurprised by the limitations, he was still a little disappointed. Only after he had scanned the horn and viewed the blueprint did a small notification appear, not a normal system notification, it appeared on the Hud in his visor.

James opened the notification to see it was a message from the kobold guy.

“If you are reading this you scanned a world item, probably yours. Anyway, you asked for a magic computer for this helm to connect to. I will be delivering you that item in about a week, after some testing, and a few special touches. Hope you like it and my special edits to your helm. -Kobold Admin

James liked how the message was addressed from, Kobold Admin. “Not a very creative name, but who am I to judge.” James checked the helm to see if the admin had done anything else, he quickly discovered that the range of the item had been extended greatly. It even had a zoom function that went up to time 10, to make the item even more powerful. He pulled up the helms info and then he saw it.

A once a week ability called, [Let all be laid bare]. Which revealed all the secrets, hidden locations, within line of sight for 10 minutes. The Hud the Kobold and his team had programmed into the helm reminded him of Iron man’s Hud. Another special feature of the helm he noticed was that from the inside, it was transparent with what he estimated to be a 180-degree line of sight.

James was truly impressed with the work the admins had done for him. He used the helm on the, Branch from the tree of Renewal. Again, he encountered a similar problem to before. This time however, he discovered someone had added into the item that he could use the staff to move friendly NPC’s around, simply by touching them. Meaning he would not have to kill any friendly NPC’s to move them.

James rejoiced at this little bit of news. He was a little startled when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Sasha long claw in her humanoid form. “Oh, it’s just you Sasha.” “I like what you have done with the place. I got a notification yesterday that me and the boys got automatically made part of your new guild, Freedom was it?” James smiled, his racing heart calming down to a more normal pace.

“Yep, got a problem with it?” “Not at all.” Sasha said while waving her hands. “I’m actually in Hong Kong, and being next to China, freedom sounds like a dream come true.” James put on a brave smiling face but on the inside, he was saddened. Remembering how fucked this world was often did that to him. So, he changed the subject.

“Would you and your boys like to accompany me on an expedition?” “That sounds perfect! I was just joint to bring that up!” She exclaimed clapping her hands together, “Stay right here I will be right back.” She said as she transformed into her werewolf form and bolting off.

Before James knew it, he and 7 others were trekking through the forest outside their new guild base. Well they ran in their werewolf forms and he flew. The remaining few players of her group were left behind to keep watch and sort out some miscellaneous details of the base. For now, he was not letting them access too many of the guilds systems, he did not entirely trust them yet.

One of the other guys asked, “Why don’t we just grind the mobs outside the base?” James and the others slowed to a stop, and James looked at him, “We would be grinding the mobs just outside the city walls, but the time it would take to level up from those monsters would be far too long.” The werewolf raised his clawed finger as if to respond, but quickly put it back down. The continued on their way until they found a small clearing in the forest.

James was wondering why they had not encountered any monsters yet then it hit him. He opened his menu and sure enough, his aura of fear was active, he promptly turned it off. Vowing to never let the rest of his teammates know of his mistake. As soon as he turned it off, he began to hear a living forest. It was a beautiful sound.

James noticed the only distinguishing feature of the clearing was the large boulder in its center. He considered what he had to lose now, not much, so he used [Let all be laid bare]. Suddenly he could see that in the boulder there was a large passageway leading down. So, he approached the rock and began tapping it with his staff all around its circumference.

He started tapping on one side of the passageway in a circle around the boulder until he was back around to the entrance. He tapped where he could see the door, encountering a moment of resistance before his staff went through. He heard Sasha say behind him, “Hey guys look what James found!” James looked at them then he looked above the entrance to see a name displayed, only for there to be none.

“Alright everyone look sharp; we don’t know what’s down there.” He said as he and his party descended into the dark passageway. If they were a lower level, they would have had trouble, but his teammates could see in the dark and he gave off a bright light in the dark. When they reached the bottom, they had entered a dimly light room. Room being a rough term for what they found.

The room they found was reminiscent of the Mines of Moria, but not so tall only about 20 feet. It had gold inlaid into the pillars of the room and in the floor. They encountered a variety of monster types mostly wolf type beasts and goblins of various sizes. None of the monster’s levels exceeded 20. Thanks to his horn the wolves and other beasts ignored him and his party, allowing them to make quick work of the other creatures.

When they were done, they examined the spoils. It reminded James he still had to ask the guys about what they had collected from the dead players when they took the city. So, he spoke up, “Hey you guys I just remembered that I sent you to collect dead players stuff.” That immediately gained their attention, more than one of them looking weary of him. He thought the worry on their faces was priceless.

“You guys can keep it, call it your bonus, and a welcome to the guild.” His teammates ears rose in surprise of his generosity. The whooped, cheered, and even howled, thanking him.

They collected the spoils and placed it all into a small pile. Every single item, of the dozen, in the pile looked like a data crystal. James could not believe their luck. He could not believe it. He picked up the largest of them and read it description.

The second lowest grade of monster core dropped by a hobgoblin.

“I says it’s a core not a data crystal.” The others each picked up something from the pile and confirmed they all said they were low grade monster cores. James did not like this. Then his teammate he had send out to scout out the rest of the room came running back. “Hey guys I found a large rocky tunnel toward the back of the room.” James really did not like this, all that was happening here reminded him of something, but he could not place it.

They walked until they reached the tunnel and so James stopped and turned to the rest of his party. “Look guys this place is giving me bad vibes; I want to ditch. However, lets take it to a vote, who wants to continue and who wants to leave. The vote was near unanimous, everyone but him wanted to continue. So, he faced his fear of what lay ahead, and continued onward with his team.

After a few minute of walking and no end in sight they picked up the pace. Five minutes later they were running with mild panic. A large crowd of friendly wolves from the original room following them down the tunnel. It took them a grand total of twenty minutes to reach the end of the tunnel. Which was a large set of blue doors with bands of gold inlaid into them.

James approached the doors and that is when he remembered where he had seen this place before. He motioned for his team to stop. “Guys this place is dangerous beyond anything.” “Oh, don’t be a worry wart, I’m sure its fine.” James turned to Sasha with a face of serious intent. “This is an Easter egg dungeon! What is on the other side of that door will…” James paused for a moment and thought it through.

“If they bothered to put the dungeon in, maybe they hid the entire story all around Yggdrasil.” Sasha stepped forward, “What is this place then?” “It’s a dungeon from a very old manga named, “Solo Leveling”.