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Vol. 7 - Power - Chapter 36
🕑 Added 2020-04-10 03:38:56 +0000 UTCWith the whole group gathered, they moved to the dungeon and teleported down so they could continue where they left off. Once inside of the dungeon, Thomas took the time to get into his armor and set his katana at his waist. He kept forgetting to stop in the alchemy store and pick up the supplies he needed to color his gear. The poor katana was still in a plain wood sheath. He could also add highlights to his armor to spice it up a bit. With everyone ready, they moved out of the safe room and got to work.
The first room proved to be no issue due to the overwhelming might of the party. The second room though was a bit more troubling. As soon as they stepped into the room they knew it would be an issue. All of the monsters were magic casters. Usually, the groups were a mixture of various types but rarely they would all be a single type. They'd never run into a group consisting entirely of magic casting monsters. As they registered the problem, the monsters instantly started bombarding the group with a variety of elemental spells.
Minerva ducked behind her large shield and was shortly joined by Aria and Lexiana as they ducked for cover. Selena raised a shield made of stone to protect herself. Snowlily did something similar but using her favored element of Ice. Thomas flipped open the shield on his left arm and used it to intercept any spells flying at him. While he blocked with his left, he pulled out his Spell Cannon with his right and started shooting the spell casting skeletons. The deeper they got into the dungeon the more often monsters would repeatedly appear. However, each time they did they would become stronger. These spell casting skeletons were as strong as a low-level Lich boss.
Selena practically glared at Thomas as she watched what he was doing. Her feeling about the gauntlet on his left arm had been true and seeing it in action terrified her to the core. A shield that could block spells? Something like that was completely unheard of and could change the balance of power in the world. In other words, he did something crazy again and gave her something else to worry about. She was honestly starting to wish she'd never found him after he left the academy. She had a rather strong love-hate relationship with the man. She loved what he could do and hated him for doing it so often.
It didn't take Thomas long to finish off the lich-like skeletons. They didn't have very strong defenses or high health. They were the epitome of glass cannons. Just a couple of well-placed shots with the flame arrow shell took them out. When the last one fell, Selena immediately turned her glare on Thomas. He knew what was coming and was prepared for it. She stomped right up to him and forcefully poked him in the chest, "What the hell was that?!"
Thomas slowly closed the shield and locked it back in place, "What do you mean? It's a shield of course."
She cocked her fist back and punched him in the chest with a fair amount of force, "You know what I meant, you ass!"
He actually felt the blow to his chest, she had a fair bit of physical strength. He sighed, "It's just something I made on accident while working on my stuff."
Everyone was staring at him, except Snowlily who just sat next to him. He looked between all of them, "What?"
Their looks turned to glares of anger. He looked around and sighed, "Look, I just messed around with some Ancient Lead and it ended up becoming an Anti-Magic material."
Selena glared daggers at him, "You don't realize what you've done, do you?"
Thomas nodded, "I do."
Selena was taken aback, "You do?"
Thomas nodded seriously, "I made an awesome shield!"
Selena screamed and punched him in the chest as hard as she could, knocking him back a few steps. Her eyes were practically on fire as she glared at him, "Why does everything you do have to be so goddamned impossible?! Can't you just make normal things like a normal person?! Are you trying to give me a heart attack? Or trying to start a war that the whole world will participate in just to get one of your crazy items?!"
Her chest heaved as she breathed heavily from her tirade. The other three women were staring at him, clearly on Selena's side. He looked around at all the women and sighed, "I don't plan to tell anyone about it and none of you can either. What's the problem?"
Selena stuttered, "You... you... you..."
She couldn't get anything else out as her brain seemed to be stuck trying to comprehend the weirdness of Thomas and his never-ending parade of things that should be impossible. She felt that is things kept going like this she would end up in an early grave from the stress of dealing with him. She turned away from him and took several deep breaths to calm her nerves and get her emotions under control. Thomas gave her the time she needed to recover her mental state. He was fully aware of how ridiculous the things he was making could be.
He walked up to Selena and gently placed his hand on her shoulder, "Look, just don't think about it. No one but me is likely to be able to make these things and this shield is soulbound to me just like every other piece of armor I'm wearing. No one can take it from me or use it so it's safe. I promise not to tell anyone else how I made it, I promise."
Selena took another deep, calming breath and slowly let it out, "Alright, fine. Are there any more surprises I need to be concerned about?"
Thomas thought for a bit, "I don't think so... maybe the other weapon I created, but it's soulbound as well. I also don't think I can safely test it down here in the dungeon. It's a long-range high damage weapon."
Selena turned to stare at Thomas, "Show me. I don't want to be surprised again."
Thomas shrugged his shoulders and pulled out The Destroyer. He held the massive rifle in both hands and smiled, "This is it. I call it 'The Destroyer.'" He pulled out one of the rounds for it, "It fires these."
The eyes of all three women widened at the sight of the huge shell for The Destroyer. During their dive in the dungeon he'd introduced them to his Peace Maker and explained how it worked. Though they didn't know everything about guns, they knew that the bullet fired from it dealt damage based on speed and size. The massive size of the bullets for The Destroyer meant it would be ungodly deadly. Aria was staring at the weapon with stars in her eyes and a bit of drool building in the corner of her mouth. She swallowed loudly then said in a whining tone, "I really wish I could use that."
Selena sighed, "Anything else?"
Thomas tilted his head for a bit and thought about it, "Mmmmm no I think that's about it. All I made was my armor, sword, and this rifle. So that should be it for surprises... for now."
"For now?!" Selena was once again glaring at him.
Thomas shrugged his shoulders, "I'll probably end up making something stupid in the future again."
Selena covered her face with her hands and took a long deep breath, "Just... try to keep it somewhat reasonable alright?!"
Thomas stored The Destroyer back inside of his inventory, "No promises."
Selena just groaned and turned around to walk to the next room. Minerva collected their share of the mana crystals as the three of them left. Thomas collected his and Lexiana collected hers. The group moved through to the next room and engaged the group of skeleton monsters. The next group was made of a more traditional collection of roles and was easier for the group to deal with as a team. Thomas chose to fight with his katana and moved into melee with Minerva, Lexiana, and Aria. The four of them worked well together and sliced through the skeletons while Selana and Snowlily blasted them with magic.
The group moved as efficiently as they could only taking a break to recover mana or for lunch. Due to the size of the floor, the didn't find the entrance to the next floor until a little after noon. After a short break in the safe room of the thirty-sixth floor, they went into the first room and checked out the monsters they would be fighting. The rooms on this floor were significantly larger than previous floors to accommodate the large frames of the three-meter tall cyclops monsters. The cyclops' were exclusively melee class monsters using a variety of large weapons to deal their damage.
Thomas practiced more with his sword. He'd used them often enough in other games but he'd never been a master though. He spent ten times more time working on making swords instead of actually using them. He moved through the room with his katana in hand. The blade glinted as he sliced through one cyclops after another. He did his best to replicate the proper forms that he'd been taught by his friends as he fought. As he got the feel of using a sword properly back, he started adding his magic into the mix. Sparks of blue electricity started to wrap around his blade adding more damage and partial paralysis to his attacks.
He practically danced through the cyclops' while using his sword to strike at their weak points. At least, the ones in range without him having to leap off of the ground. They were too tall for him to reach spots like their necks. He focused on disabling their legs then going in for the kill them they fell down. After a while, he felt like he was felling trees. When they finished with the first room and moved to the second room, he started using the enchantment on his greaves to propel himself through the air. It let him get at the throats of whatever cyclops he decided to kill with relative ease.
To get a better feel for running in the air, he spent move time moving than actually attacking. The platforms created by the greaves felt soft and had a little give to them. It took a lot of getting used to with how soft his steps felt. No matter how much mana he used for the ability, his steps never felt solid when he was in the air. Still, he got used to it after a while and became much quicker with his movements. He even started pulling off tricks and using true three-dimensional movement. It was a truly exhilarating experience.
Unfortunately, the size of the dungeon floors made their movement deeper into the dungeon take a long time. There were also fewer people this deep in the dungeon meaning that finding empty rooms that could be skipped was nearly impossible. By the time they found the stairs leading down to the thirty-seventh floor, it was long past sunset. They spent the whole day inside of the dungeon and only managed to make it down two more floors. Compared to their previous speed, they had slowed to a snails crawl.
They teleported back to the surface and returned to their inn to enjoy a nice dinner together. After they finished eating, Thomas looked at the group, "I'd like to take tomorrow off. I have something else I would like to do."
The girls didn't complain about taking a break. Though they trained and used dungeons to get stronger, they didn't have a habit of doing it for days at a time. With dinner finished, Thomas and Snowlily moved up to their room. Once they were alone, Thomas pulled out Snowlily's clothing and set some out on the bed for her, "You can change to your human form now."
He closed his eyes and faced a corner so he wouldn't see anything. After a bright light, he heard ruffling sounds and some muttering. After a little while, he heard a soft childish voice, "All done."
When Thomas turned around, he finally got a good look at Snowlily in her human form. He'd avoided looking previously, for obvious reasons. Now that he got a real look at her, she was freaking adorable. From the top down, she had snow-white hair that matched her fur. It went down to the small of her back and had two sections that stuck up like foe ears. Her eyes were still the same crystalline blue as in her wolf form and showed the same intelligence. Her face was the very definition of 'regal'. When she reached maturity she would become a very beautiful woman. At the moment she was wearing a simple light blue one-piece dress for young girls that brought out her childishness.
She smiled brilliantly as she did a little spin to show off the dress, "What do you think?"
Thomas smiled brightly. Garou or not, she was still a girl, "It looks lovely."
He moved over and sat on the bed. She immediately hopped up onto the bed to sit next to him and immediately snuggled close. Thomas stroked her hair, "So, now that you can take human form, is anything different?"
Snowlily tilted her head and thought for a bit, "Not really. I can do anything any human could do. None of that matters though. The best part is finally being able to talk to you! Not only that, but I can help out more too. And you can teach me things and so much more!"
She practically vibrated with excitement as she talked. Thomas stroked her head out of habit, "It will be nice to be able to talk. For now, though, It would probably be better if everyone but Lexiana didn't know you could take human form. I don't know the whole history of what happened with the Garou and the humans. If there's still animosity or fear, I don't want them to hurt you because of it. Do you understand?"
Snowlily pouted but nodded, "I understand."
Thomas continued to stroke her hair, "I'm sorry that you have to hide what you can do but I promise to protect you until you were grown."
Snowlily nodded again and snuggled into his hand. They chatted about mundane things for a while until the topic of food came up. Snowlily immediately pouted and glared at Thomas, "I hate vegetables! They're gross!"
He had to fight, hard, not to smile at her adorable pouting. He cleared his throat and took on an 'adult' tone with her, "You have to eat your vegetables if you want to grow up big and strong."
She continued to pout/glare at him for a few moments before huffing and giving up. She looked away from him until he started to stroke her hair once more, "As long as you eat your vegetables, you'll have plenty of meat to eat."
She immediately perked up at that. Things went smoothly until it was time to go to sleep. Snowlily changed back to her wolf form so that things wouldn't be awkward. The two companions drifted off to sleep together.
Comments
Erik Zorger
He needs to make snowlilly armor that changes with her.
Deathburn
Thanks
