[Sire… Sire... Sire!] Jolting me awake from my sleep was MERLIN's voice as she called out in a loud voice from my smartphone, so loud, in fact, that there was an evident distortion of her voice at the end.

"Seriously?" I rubbed my temples. "Haa, you're becoming just like FRIDAY, you know?"

I got off the bed and took out my phone.

[Well, sire, I am modeled after her, since you didn't want to forget abou—]

"No, no, no, no, I'll stop you right there! I did not model you after her, because I want to remember her or anything, alright? I did it because she's an exceptional AI and her skills should be passed on to the next generation. Got that?"

I solemnly stared at the front camera of my smartphone.

[Hmmm~ I see. Well, thank you, sire, for the beautiful opportunity you have given me!] MERLIN said enthusiastically as if she was really grateful, but I knew better.

I sighed internally. She really is becoming like FRIDAY as days go by. I'm starting to miss the subservient AI I had at the start, but I don't mind the way MERLIN is right now.

Besides, technically, FRIDAY and MERLIN are one and the same as they have the same baseline code; the only difference they have is name and functions.

"Anyway, why'd you call?"

[Oh, yes, your package will be arriving in a few minutes. I have gathered information about the deliveryman and found that he's safe. However, if you want to manually check him, I can send the documents containing his data to your phone now.]

"Yeah, no need for that." Looking out the window, the sun was still up. "How long have I been asleep?"

[For about two hours and a half, sire.]

Almost three hours, huh? I should wash myself up before getting my package.

With that said, I wore a towel from the closet around my waist after removing my clothes and placing them on the bed.

Then, going to the bathroom, I took a quick hot bath.

A few minutes later, I went out as steam rose from my skin.

Of course, I'll be reusing the same clothes. I should've brought clothes, but the extra luggage I have to carry is way too troublesome. So, I'll be buying new clothes, which was fine since I'm planning to relocate here for my next course of action after getting the All-stone.

Going to the closet, a mirror was hung on its right door, reflecting my figure.

Although I have only been doing light exercises that would prevent me from going out of shape, I'm becoming leaner for my age. However, it only happened because I am a Maven and my progress in manipulating mana, improving my overall physique. It honestly feels like I've taken the kind of steroids some athletes would use in a competition, but much healthier.

"So, this is how I'd look like if I worked out…" I muttered. In my youth, I was more of an intellectual type than an athletic type, so I never really worked out to gain muscles, but instead, to keep myself from getting out of shape.

I looked away from the mirror and continued on the bed to wear my clothes.

And in the nick of time, a series of knocks sounded on my door.

—Knock! —Knock! —Knock!

"Package for Arthur Bennett of Room 994!" the deliveryman called out.

I went to get the door, and the deliveryman gave me my package, which was a large suitcase after I signed the papers, then he went on his way.

As he left, I easily carried the suitcase with one hand as I brought it onto my bed, laying it horizontally.

Holding the suitcase by its side handle, a 'click' sounded, followed by a 'beep.' The suitcase extended outwards and upwards from its sides, revealing the equipment I would be using for the dungeon.

The Desert Eagle and the different bullets in explicitly labeled magazines were in the middle. On the sides were the various gadgets that would help me find the All-stone and the body armors.

I took a couple of slightly bulky disks and placed them around the room.

Then, I took out and wore a special headset I made for this occasion. It had a narrow band that wrapped around the back of my head. On the right side, though, served as an earpiece that helps me listen and answer calls that may come, mainly from MERLIN. In contrast, the other side extends further, parallel to my other ear, and has a display lens over my left eye.

Tapping on the side of the display lens to turn it on, MERLIN's voice sounded from the right, [Connecting…]

I waited patiently as she booted up the disks I laid out.

Then—

[Connected! We're up and ready to go, sire.]

The disks whirred, and, through the display lens, holographic screens appeared above the disks.

This was done through augmented reality. In a nutshell, computer-generated information are displayed in a real-world environment in real-time as if they are a part of that environment, and such information is displayed with the help of a camera. Users of it, such as myself, can interact with that generated information using sensory perceptions, usually by visual, auditory, or haptic interactions.

With what I could salvage with my abilities right now, it was the most cost-efficient thing I could do.

There are three ways I can get advanced materials: one, I need to become 18; two, I need to have a backer who would supply me with the materials; or three, I need to become someone with a high status that it exempts me from that rule.

The first way would obviously take a while.

There were already a few backers I could think of that I could use for the second way, but simply getting that chance to meet them is almost impossible.

So, the third way is all I got left, which was already a part of my plan, but it needs to be done discreetly. Otherwise, things would get troublesome.

So, for now, I'll wait and see how things will turn out.

With the holographic screens displayed around my room through the display lens, I can act like my hotel room is my office since everything here is being run on the cloud servers I set up in my condo unit.

Using hand gestures, I controlled the information displayed on the holographic screens as if they were smartphones and searched for more information about the dungeon I'll be heading into.

Such information are available to the public. However, there's a chance that some information are intentionally left out by stronger guilds to give them a competitive advantage over the others when navigating dungeons.

So, what I'm trying to do right now is capture that information.

Some guilds stored those information on a weak server, so I could quickly steal that information without being caught. However, their information was something I already knew, mostly because I am the author and partly because MERLIN had already done so.

Although MERLIN had also explained the dungeon during the taxi ride, she couldn't give me the detailed map of the dungeon so far, which was what I wanted.

I already knew what type of monsters, what type of environment, and what kind of dangers and treasures lies in the dungeon. However, that wouldn't mean anything if I don't know where they are or how to navigate through the dungeon.

After all, knowing the terrain in and out changes how you proceed with your plan, especially in a life-and-death situation.

And it's been stressing me out since only the top guilds have that information, and it's locked away in highly secured servers, which I can't penetrate even with MERLIN since something is blocking any external interference.

It's most likely they used runes to prevent any hackers as an extra security measure, which means that I have to be inside the servers if I want to look into that information.

"Maybe I should learn runes…" I muttered. People who create runes on equipment and weapons are called runesmiths. They are in high demand because runes are hard to grasp, much less to produce. Hence, people are willing to pay runesmiths a large amount of money so they can create relics and artifacts for them.

As I pondered that, MERLIN called, [Sire, I was able to access a security camera of the servers of the Aviate Guild, a top 10 guild.]

"Great. Send it on the screen."

A live video feed of the servers appeared above one of the disks, replacing the screen before it.

And immediately, something caught my eye, which made me sigh, but just to be sure...

"MERLIN, can you focus on this part right here?" I pointed towards the server with thick wires going out the bottom and extending towards the other servers.

The video explicitly focused on the part I pointed to, making it slightly blurry. Still, I can vaguely recognize the scribbles and symbols around that server, confirming my earlier statement—they are using runes.

"Ughhh…"I groaned in annoyance. Well, a detailed map of the dungeon is now out of reach for me.

There was no need to worry, though, since, luckily,

how I plan to find the All-stone will also give me the general formation of the terrain.

However, I should probably learn runes since they are necessary to become strong. Frankly, I'm shocked that runes can be used this way since I've always thought that only Mavens can affect runes and not signals and such.

So, searching the internet, I quickly found a book with a high rating from professional runesmiths.

[Becoming a Runesmith for the Absolute Beginners!]

I got to start somewhere, right?

Paying through my card, I chose to have a soft copy of the book instead of a hard copy since I didn't like to wait.

In a few minutes, the payment was processed, and the soft copy of the book was sent to my email address.

After downloading it, I first let MERLIN process the book so that she could give me the essential details. That doesn't mean, though, that I won't be reading it. After all, where's the fun in only having MERLIN summarize it to me?

Once MERLIN had made progress with the book, I started to read too.

====

A/N: Hey, guys, I'm back after nearly two weeks of absence. I'm sorry for doing so, but I had to since I made a very stupid mistake.

So, back then, while I was reviewing my outline, I realized that some details were missing or I'm pretty sure I changed some details but the changed details weren't there. That's when I realized I was following the wrong outline due to me mislabeling them. What's worse is that I deleted the outline I should be following along with the other old outlines due to me not having enough storage space in my laptop, so I was forced to write it again.

Luckily though, I took notes of all the major changes and details to add, but it still took me a while, so I’m only done with the outline for this volume and the next volume.

So, yeah, that’s about it. I hope you enjoy the chapter and I’m gonna try to speed up the pacing of the plot since I feel like it’s slower than I hoped it would be.