"This is a spatial storage ring! How in the world did you acquire such an artifact!?" Gilbert practically shouts in shock as he looks at both Paul and I trying to figure out how such an item came to be.
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Seeing Gilbert's reaction to the ring I provided to him, Paul couldn't help but laugh knowing how mind blown Gilbert is after reading the information on the ring. As Paul is laughing I begin to explain to Gilbert everything about myself and my system just like I did with Golaium and Paul the week prior. After about an hour of back story Gilbert sits back in his chair and closes his eyes and digests all the information that he just received from me.
"So, you are the successor of our Great God Nephelium, and you are the progenitor of this animus system that I now have a copy of. It's due to this systems loot function that you obtained this spatial storage ring and you're telling me that you're able to gain even more fantastical artifacts in the future by killing monsters?" Gilbert finally says as he opens up his eyes and stares at me in utter wonder and fascination.
"That is correct" I reply with a nod.
"How utterly marvelous, to think that something like this truly exists. How are you planning on handling the loot that you acquire in the future?" Gilbert asks as he leans forward in his chair while staring at me in excitement.
"I've set it up with Damian, my head blacksmith, to be able to sort and distribute the obtained loot to the respective people that need it. This way whatever items can be used to enhance the lives of the cities citizens will be made available and the items that can be used to make other items can be sorted and stored accordingly," I explain to Gilbert.
"If that is the case, I'd like to have a team of my top mages to assist him in sorting through the items, that way we can also start researching items that would benefit us the most and potentially be able to recreate certain enchantments on other items throughout the city," Gilbert says as he fiddles with the ring in his hands.
"That can definitely be arranged, I'd like to make everything as smooth and seamless as possible. If at all possible, I'd like the guild masters from all the guilds to get together and possibly create a specialized guild that will handle the loot acquired in the future," I say thoughtfully as I look at both Paul and Gilbert.
"That sounds like a great idea, this way everything will be handled by the guild masters who will only answer to you and his majesty," Paul says after thinking about what I have suggested.
"That will indeed make the chain of command rather simple and make everything much more efficient. Although I believe I know the answer I still feel compelled to ask this, who has a higher authority, his majesty or James?" Gilbert asks Paul directly.
"Ah, yes, I figured you'd ask this question. James is the head of the Baruch Familia and his majesty pledged himself to James's Familia which makes James here the highest authority in the kingdom," Paul answers automatically and gestures to me as he answers Gilberts question proudly.
"I see, I had a feeling that was going to be the answer to my question. Honestly, I'm kind of happy that James is the highest authority, this way we have a newer set of eyes and a different thought process brought into our kingdom. Not that I'm saying his majesty isn't the best king we've had its just nice to have a new and different way of thinking helping the kingdom grow," Gilbert explains hurriedly making sure he isn't misunderstood in his explanation.
"I know what you mean, and you don't have to worry, his majesty has become quite fanatical about James since he explained his origins and all the benefits that he and his system have brought to our kingdom," Paul reassures Gilbert as he laughs heartily about Golaium's fanaticism.
"That is good to hear, I'm glad his majesty is happy with the way things have turned out," Gilbert says as he smiles happily.
"Now that you've inspected the ring, do you think you'll be able to replicate the enchantments that enable it to perform spatial magic?" I ask Gilbert as he and Paul are enjoying their laughter.
"Ah of course, I do believe that I'll be able to replicate the enchantments given sometime and further examination of the ring to find out what enchantment runes are used in making up its spatial ability," Gilbert assures me as he holds the ring up to the light and marvels in its magnificence.
"That's good to hear, you can keep the ring and research it as long as it takes for you to come up with the runic sequence necessary to use spatial storage," I tell Gilbert with a smile seeing him so fascinated in the ring.
Soon after Paul and I leave Gilbert's office and leave him to examine the ring further. Paul leaves to go back to his adventurer's guild to take care of some of the administrative paperwork needed to run the guild while also getting things in order to create the special team in charge of the loot gained by my clone and I.
I decide to head back to Rinascita to see how the building construction is going now that citizens from Marbelium have started to move to Rinascita after gaining access to the system and the Familia skills.
Since a week has already past, since the citizens of Marbelium gained the animus system quite a few of them have decided to move to Rinascita and create another version of their business that they have in Marbelium. Many have also moved to Rinascita in order to hunt the monsters that populate my floor's biomes in the hopes of gaining new strength and becoming an adventurer in order to gain more power and money to either support themselves in a life of luxury or in order to support their family and loved ones.
Many of the dwarves from the blacksmiths guild have even moved down and joined Damian's blacksmithing shop in order to gain more recognition for their works since they were always overshadowed in the guild in Marbelium. With so many people moving to the city it has become a lot livelier and there are a lot of different style homes decorating the city limits due to people being able to make their houses look however they would like thanks to the animus system.
Several days have gone by since Paul and I met with Gilbert, Paul has now moved down to the castle in Rinascita after leaving the adventurers guild to his second in command essentially making him the new leader of the adventurers guild in his stead. After moving into the castle Paul started to improve the different aspects of my main floor, making more and more resources available for people to mine and gather.
Also, the city defenses have been upgraded becoming more refined and a lot more durable adding more defensive strength to them.
A city watch was also established by Paul allowing those who want to get stronger protect the city when they're not out hunting monsters or guarding those that leave the city in order to gather the resources necessary to run their businesses. Life in the dwarven kingdom has definitely improved by leaps and bounds in the two short weeks after Golaium decided to join the Baruch Familia, all of the citizens have become hooked on the new communications system provided by the animus system.
Some in the mages guild have even begun to research ways they can make artifacts that work with the communications system in order to expand the capabilities of it and further improve the social lives of the citizens. Some of the mages are trying to add a viewing feature into the communications system in order for those talking to each other to have the ability to also see one another by using a special crystal that transmits images between the crystals.
As all of this transpires my clone has already returned to Murcrilium and is assisting the construction of the forward operating base at the beginning of the spider's territory. The dwarves managed to build a very formidable fort as a base, it has extremely high defensive walls that have smooth exterior surfaces that make it nearly impossible for the spiders' to walk along it due to its nonporous surface. They also placed enchantments on the walls to incinerate any webs that the spiders might try to cover it with in order to gain the ability to crest the tops of the wall and enter the fort.
Soon the base is completed and there are roughly five hundred dwarves staying there in order to keep the spiders advancement in check and to make sure that some of the newer dwarves get the proper training needed to hunt the spiders. Since the emergence of the animus system there has been in influx of dwarves that want to get stronger by killing monsters, so I decided to set up a training camp inside of Murcrilium and using the forward base as a sort of hunting ground entrance to allow the training dwarves access to go out and kill the spiders. This way the training dwarves can gain battle experience and they're also able to diminish the spider's ever growing population.
This new lifestyle change will be the first steps in creating a society that is based off of monster cores and loot items instead of materials harvested from monster corpses. The mages guild research team led by Gilbert slowly begin to piece together the runic formula of the ring as both Paul and Golaium manage their respective cities. In the meantime I travel a crossed the second floor of the dungeon in search of the door leading to the third floor.