I took myself into my first dungeon’s safe room. I wasn’t needing Kasidy to talk with me for the next several days as I worked. The important thing first was to get my pack as upgraded as I could. Once I couldn’t move it forward by crook or hook anymore, then I would get started on the other things.

I started to dump mana into the external frame pack. I would trickle it in and then check to see how much more I needed to give it. It turned out that there wasn’t much it needed for the second level, only 10 mana. Then I bought leather from the store and fed it to the pack along with clubs which were the wood.

I kept this going for the next several hours until the pack made it to level 12 and gave me something that Dave said the store couldn’t get me for cheap. It turned out that while I could get most of my base items here, getting neat things like carved ivory buttons only showed up on expensive items. So while yes, I could get the royal dress of Queen Prungudva the second for 19 platinum bars, I chose to stop to see what I had.

External frame Pack core!

As your External frame Pack core is the first it is uncapped in level

Normal External frame Pack cores will be capped at level 2.

As your External frame Pack levels its helpfulness increases.

General

Arn’s External frame Pack

Level 12

Type item core

Class Ultra Rare

Durability 1000/1000

This is Arm’s external frame pack. While this pack once looked just like all the other packs that the wild humans use. It has risen from being just sticks held together with leather strips and a single large bag held to it. No now Arn’s External Frame Pack is a thing of craftsmanship that leaves its humble origins behind. Where once there was rugged fur now is smooth well made leather, sticks are now replaced with a system of well designed poles and the joints are fastened with finely crafted bronze.

This pack’s shoulder straps are now fully adjustable. In addition to the shoulders there is now a waist strap with a quick release. No longer is the pack a single bag but now has one main pouch and two side pouches. There are also places to attach other equipment such as the ties on the bottom that appear to be good for a sleeping fur.

>Growth

To level your item core you must use it for its purpose and provide for it material to level to the next level.

Tin 0% Wool 0% Mana 0% Carved ivory buttons 0% Red dye 0% Glass 0%

>Traits

These are the abilities or traits that your pack has.

Lighten- This pack is designed in such a way that when carried the weight effects you less. Everything in this while on your back is 70% lighter. Durable- This container is durable, it will not wear out from normal use durability will only decrease with targeted attacks. Water Proof- Nothing in or on this pack will become wet or damaged by water. Odor suppressant- No odor from inside will get outside. Self cleaning- This pack will clean itself when told to. Everything inside or on it will be expelled. Leaving the pack fully clean. Buoyancy adjustable- The buoyancy of this pack can be adjust by the wear’s will. Thus letting the wear sink or swim.

I smiled. “Well this should make the trip a bit easier. I need to get the water skin better but after that I might have to call it done and talk with Sam.”

I got started feeding and leveling my beverage storage container. Part of me was angry that I had to trigger each leveling and that feeding it the right things didn’t make it auto-level. But part of me was also excited to see it jump from level one up to level 10 across two days of working on it.

The waterskin went from looking like any other leather bag to a fancy one. The leather was much cleaner and almost looked like suede. The bag part was encased in what appeared to be brushed bronze vines. The stopper was no longer just a piece of wood slammed into an opening. It had turned into a dull metal spout with what appeared to be a small ball valve.

I smiled as I took a look over the new stats. Like all my world’s firsts, all the writing was in gold letters.

General

Arn’s Beverage storage

Level 10

Type item core

Class Ultra Rare

Durability 627/627

This is Arm’s beverage storage container. While it does let you drink directly from the storage skin this is for transporting a beverage. This is Beverage container has a core. Like all items that have a core it can level. As this is an item core it can not reproduce itself. To make new beverage storage container cores the correct building must be constructed.

>Growth

To level your item core you must use it for its purpose and provide for it material to level to the next level.

Hardwood Charcoal 0% Leather level 20 or above 0% Mana 0% Ruby 0% Silver %

>Traits

These are the abilities or traits that your beverage storage container has.

Fresh- This container keeps your beverage fresh as it was put in. Lighten- This beverage storage container reduces beverage weight by 90% Increased capacity- This beverage storage container can now hold 100% more than its size would suggest. Durable- This container is durable, it will not wear out from normal use durability will only decrease with targeted attacks. Purify 3- This beverage storage container can purify what is in it up to level 3 toxins and poisons. Memory- Once a day can change the contents of the container to a remembered content. Current memory slots 3. Cost to store memory 60. Cost to activate memory variable

I was happy this item had become more powerful than I expected it would be. If I had known that leveling it would bring me this type of power, I would have done it a long time ago. That said, I could only level it this high because of the dungeon. I wouldn’t have been able to get glass beads or silver thread without the dungeon. Even then, it was kind of expensive to get some of the things. But getting to level 10 was worth it.

I could now hold six liters of water, and if I needed to, I could likely turn that into health potions or mana. I just needed to take the time to fill it from my health potions first. Each potion was a single one-ounce shot, so I was thinking that was about 30 per liter, and so I was looking at 180 health potions that I needed to drop into it.

I had three cored health potions that would each refill once a day, so I was looking at close to 60 days in the safe room to fill it. I could buy more potions, but that would be me taking time elsewhere to make items to sell to the dungeon so that I could buy more potions. While I could game the system for a while, putting a hold on my trip would bug me. So I would just take the time to fill low-level beverage storage containers until I had enough.

As it was, I needed to take or waste the time to go sleep in my yurt and see what Sam would tell me about claiming land. I had a feeling that I needed to claim this area before I left. I wasn’t sure where the feeling was coming from, but I felt like if I didn’t, then something wasn’t going to work out that I needed.

I stopped and thought, though, for a few moments about that feeling. I was the type that enjoyed looking at spreadsheets and numbers to figure out what was going on. I couldn’t always show you what I saw and make the numbers prove it, but I was right more than I was wrong. Which meant that I was seeing something going on to give me this feeling; I just needed to know what it was.

I shook my head and gathered up my stuff. It wasn’t going to come to me with me trying to think through. Not this time, anyway. I was still missing something that would explain it all to me. I hoped that something would be what Sam was going to tell me.

I headed out of the safe room and down to my yurt. It was time that I had a bad night’s sleep and got some answers.

That night I dreamed.

I was back in Sam’s office just as I expected, but I didn’t expect that I would be tiny and leaning over the edge of his bookshelf. I couldn’t have been more than half an inch tall if that, and I was leaning over the edge of the bookshelf looking down below. I was balanced in such a way I knew I was going off the edge. I could feel my arms were in the start of a circle to try to catch myself, but it wasn’t there.

Sure I had climbed up a rock wall more than once, and I had gotten my climbing skill raised up kind of high. What I never did, though, was looking down. I hated looking down and thinking about what would happen to me if I fell. I knew that I was in Sam’s office and this was a dream, so I wasn’t going to get hurt, but that didn’t help my brain any. I was freaking out, looking down.

If I was my standard height, the fall looked like it was close to three hundred feet, and I just knew there was nothing around me that would catch me. I wasn’t one of those adrenalin junkies that would go and do things like base jumping for the rush. I had done the drop rides at a few places to try to get over my fear. It wasn’t the fall that was always the rush. It was the thought of what would happen at the end.

My brain was going through how, when I hit the ground, I was going to break. I didn’t know if it would be a sudden end or if I would feel my bones breaking as I hit. I knew that the fall would likely leave me dead, as most falls over 100 feet were fatal. That being said, I didn’t know if my size would let me bounce better or something like that. This meant that I may end up breaking everything and slowly dying.

I wanted to try to get my breathing under control so that I could lower my fear and think clearer, but I couldn’t since I couldn’t move. Just like I couldn’t look around, I wasn’t breathing, and just like I wasn’t falling, I couldn’t stop myself from falling. I hated Sam.

Hours went by. I was sure of it, but I just didn’t know since the clock wasn’t even ticking. Then I was off the shelf and back to full size. I was standing in front of Sam, who looked up from his desk.

Sam cleared his throat, “Arn, On a place you have a legitimate claim to open your visual interface by saying. Land acquisition. Once that opens up you need to then select the land that you want to claim. There are options to expand around your land based off of your titles and your claim level. If your right to the area is greater than the right of the current owner if there is one then you get the area as yours. Enough land and you will gain land based titles which give you rights to claim more land.”

With that, I was back to being small, and then the fall started. People say you die if you hit the ground in your sleep. I can tell you that you don’t, at least not this type of dream. Nope, I bounced on the floor twice before I woke up.

* * *