We found a bench to sit on so that Sylvie and Silvia could enjoy their hotdogs. The fairy sisters munched happily on the buns and sausages, savoring the crisp onions and sweet ketchup, as well as the tangy mustard.
"This is so delicious!"
"I never had anything like this before!"
Sylvie and Silvia couldn't stop praising the food. I chuckled and handed them tissues to wipe their mouths after they were done eating.
"Are you guys done? Let's continue exploring the city."
"Okay."
"Yeah!"
After we responsibly disposed of the greasy paper boxes that held the hotdogs, we continued to wander along the commercial district. Occasionally, we would stop by shops to peer through the windows and gawk at what was on display. Being girls, Sylvie and Silvia were naturally drawn to clothing boutiques, their eyes wide as they stared at the beautiful, stylish dresses. When I offered to buy them, they declined.
"Big sis Myria says she'll purchase them for us," Silvia said. "And she says she'll be better at advising us on what to wear. She complains that you're fine with anything, that whenever you go out, you tell her that she looks beautiful no matter what she wears no matter how many times she tries to get an opinion from you."
"Why did she tell you girls about that? Did she already predict I might bring you out to buy clothes today?"
Woman's intuition was scary.
"Um, she suggests that you buy us food instead," Sylvie said nervously. I smiled and nodded.
"That I can do. If you guys still have space in your stomachs after the hotdogs, maybe let's get some dessert."
If this was a Japanese light novel or manga, I would buy them crepes. As it was, nobody sold crepes here. What they did sell, though, was ice cream. Hell, yeah. I love ice cream. Guiding the fairy sisters to an ice cream store, I bought a scoop for each of them.
"What do you guys want?"
"Hmm…vanilla! I like the color of the vanilla ice cream!" Silvia had already decided. Sylvie, on the other hand, looked confused.
"Um, I've never eaten ice cream before. What would you recommend, Jun Wen?"
"Hmm, how about chocolate?"
"Okay. If that's what Jun Wen suggests, then I'm sure I'll like it."
"Heh…" Silvia studied Sylvie, who was more reserved. She grinned slyly. "Big sis, you really look like a lovestruck maiden."
"I…I do not! Silvia, stop talking nonsense!"
"Okay, can I have a single vanilla scoop, a single chocolate scoop and a single mango scoop?"
"Coming right up, sir!" The ice cream man beamed as he scooped the respective flavors into three different cups and handed them over, along with tiny plastic spoons. I forked out the cash and paid him, even as Sylvie and Silvia took their ice creams and ate them.
"OOOH! Nice!" Silvia gasped as she danced about, the ice cream melting in her mouth. She clamped a hand on her cheek, trembling. "But it's so cold! Whoa! What is this feeling?"
"This is really good." Sylvie tried a mouthful of chocolate ice cream before she closed her eyes and savored the flavor. "I like it. Thanks for recommending it."
"I'm glad." I enjoyed my mango ice cream. Mango was my favorite flavor, and I always chose it for desserts. Whether it was mango cake, mango ice cream, mango juice or mango yoghurt, it was my go-to flavor for everything. While I scooped another spoonful to my mouth, I caught sight of Sylvie watching me. I smiled and offered her my cup. "Would you like to try it?"
"Is it really okay?"
"Yeah. Go ahead."
Sylvie hesitantly poked her spoon into my cup and tried a mouthful of mango ice cream. She then beamed. "It's really good!"
"Of course! It's mango ice cream!"
"How about you take some of my chocolate ice cream too? I know you've eaten it before, but it's only fair that we trade…"
"Um, sure. Fine."
After we exchanged a couple of spoonsful of ice cream, we noticed that Silvia was watching us with a sly grin. I raised an eyebrow.
"What is it?"
"You two look good together, seriously. How about it, bro-in-law? You can have my big sis as your second wife. Don't worry, I won't tell big sis Myria."
"Stop it, Silvia! Please!"
"Yeah, please stop it. I know we're in Hua Xia, but the FBI might come knocking on my door any moment. I'm not a lolicon."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Silvia waved her hands in rage, almost spilling her ice cream from her cup. I chuckled and shook my head wryly. Sitting on a bench and watching the two of them eat ice cream, I couldn't help but think that they look like kids instead of real fairies. Of course, I couldn't tell them that.
"Anyway…" Sylvie straightened as she sat on the bench, resting her cup on her lap and staring sternly at me. "We are supposed to teach you spirit arrays, right?"
"Yeah. I know the basics, but I'm still not very good at them. Long Wang also tutored me in a few."
"Honestly, it's fine if you don't know the advanced and complex spirit arrays. Silvia and I can handle those. From now on, we are a team, so we will cover each other's weaknesses and make use of each other's strengths. You will have to protect us while we set up spirit arrays, just like what you did for Long Wang when fighting Murderous Crow."
"That's what I thought, so why is there a need to teach me spirit arrays?"
"Because it'll be advantageous if you at least know the basics. What happens if Silvia and I aren't around? If we are incapacitated? At least you will have some understanding and can employ a few basic spirit arrays in case of an emergency."
"Understood."
"Whoa, big sis…you're suddenly so scary…" Silvia shuddered. Then she grinned. "If you're like this, then you should have no problem competing against big sis Myria!"
"Can you just keep quiet for a moment?"
"AAAH! Scary!"
"We'll begin your lessons after we return to Myria's apartment." Sylvie finished the last of her ice cream while nodding solemnly. "So be prepared."
"Oh, before that, though, I have somewhere I want to bring you guys to."
"Eh?" Silvia grinned excitedly. "Where?"
Less than thirty minutes later, after we reached Myria's apartment and entered the twin sisters' room, I teleported them to my Deep Sea Palace. It was an interesting mechanic, because Sylvie and Silvia were technically my summoned spirits because of the contract we had. As such, I could summon them to wherever I was, as well as transport them to my dungeon.
"Do you remember that you gave me a seed of the World Tree in exchange for a favor?" I asked Sylvie. She nodded. I then led her and her younger sister deeper into the dungeon, where a forest was growing. "I planted it in this section of my dungeon, where my Phantom Stumps, Tree Revenants, Ghost Pumpkins and Wraith Pumpkins are. I was trying to create my own version of the Spectral Forest, so maybe a haunted forest within the Deep Sea Palace. That's why I thought it would be a good idea to plant the World Tree seed here, but the results have far exceeded my expectations."
"My lord." Long Wang bowed when we entered the now forested cavern. He had been supervising the growth of the new forest and ironing out any disagreements between the ghost tree spirit beasts and pumpkin spirit beasts. "As you can see, the Haunted Forest is expanding very rapidly."
"Yeah. I didn't think we would have a full fledged forest in just a couple of days. I thought it would take more time for the vegetation to grow."
Not only did we have pumpkin patches at the edges of the forest, grass had grown rampantly, turning into a lush, verdant carpet. Dotted along the emerald landscape were slowly growing trees. They weren't as big as the Tree Revenants yet, mostly little shrubs that sprouted here and there, but their growth was still much faster than natural trees. Usually, for them to reach a height of half a meter or so would take them weeks, if not months.
Yet they were already this tall. At least they didn't turn into fully grown trees in just two days, or I would suspect that something was amiss.
"A forest within a deep sea type dungeon." Sylvie was looking around curiously. "I never expected that."
"Yup. And since the two of you have much more experience with forest stuff, I thought I'll seek advice from you regarding the haunted Forest I'm trying to create here."
"Sure. We'll keep an eye on the development of your forest and help wherever necessary. We have a link established with the wood type spirit beasts living here, so if they need anything, or if any circumstances arise, we'll teleport here immediately and handle it." Sylvie nodded and pressed a hand to her chest while smiling. "You can leave this to us, Jun Wen. Sir Long Wang can continue to manage the sea portions of your dungeon, while Silvia and I will oversee the forest sections."
"Thanks. That will be a great help. Is that all right with you, Long Wang?"
"Certainly. It will definitely take a load off my shoulders if I'm not the only steward here."
Great. With that settled, I couldn't help but look forward to seeing the final form of the forest in my dungeon. I wondered how it would look like, and what other spirit beasts would populate it eventually.
"What do you want to accomplish, Jun Wen?" Silvia asked, energetically exploring the place. While her sister, Long Wang and I were conversing, she had run off to do her own thing. Now that we were in my dungeon and out of the sight of human civilization, she had dismissed the illusion technique that concealed her wings and taken flight. The transparent, blue-tinted wings flapped as she hovered around, studying the gradually growing forest. "Mix two types of dungeons together?"
"I guess." I shrugged. "Maybe it's a bad idea."
"Actually, I think it's worth a shot," Long Wang said. He pointed at the center of the burgeoning forest, where a single tree stood. It wasn't a full grown tree, and like the other shrubs, it was just a young sprout right now, but it was visibly larger than the others. And it emanated a potent natural qi. "My lord, when you planted the World Tree seed there, it turned into a dungeon core. So basically, now you are in possession of a dual core dungeon."
"A dual core dungeon? Aren't those very rare?" Sylvie's hands flew to her mouth.
"Huh? What's a dual core dungeon?" On the other hand, Silvia stared at us blankly, even as she hovered above the newly grown forest.
"It's just a dungeon with two different types of habitats either merged together or existing side by side like what you see right now." Long Wang gestured toward the different caverns. "A two in one dungeon. The advantages are that we have much more territory than a normal single core dungeon, and a dual core dungeon will always be more powerful, which makes sense because we have twice the amount of cores and thus twice the sources of qi to power the dungeon. Of course, the trade off is that a dual core dungeon will be much more expensive to maintain, so…yeah, you are going to need to find more spirit stones. The good news is that the veins and lodestones of spirit stones that we have in our dungeon should just barely be enough to maintain an upkeep of qi, but the bad news is that you can forget about making any kind of profit."
"Well, luckily I just received a bunch of spirit stones from the last mission." I reached into my storage device and took the rewards from Ling Zhen out. Heading toward the little tree that served as the second dungeon core, the former World Tree seed that had sprouted, I placed the spirit stones around it so that it could feed off their esoteric energies. When I did so, the system projected a notification window.
-Would you like to upgrade your dungeon? –
"Huh? I thought I wouldn't have enough…and that I will need higher quality spirit stones to upgrade my dungeon further."
-Each dungeon core can be upgraded separately. Would you like to upgrade the World Tree dungeon core? –
Damn, so the upgrades weren't shared. If I had to upgrade each dungeon core separately, that meant the maintenance and upgrades would be more expensive. Theoretically, a dual core dungeon would cost twice as much to upgrade when compared to a normal single core dungeon.
However, the benefits should be worth it. Taking a deep breath, I decided to go for it.
"Yeah. Let's do this."
The budding World Tree absorbed the qi from the spirit stones before being engulfed in a blinding flash of light for a few seconds as it began the upgrading process.