DMS Chapter 97

The next day, while they were all eating breakfast that Christopher had cooked, everyone was amazed when Flinx suddenly said that he couldn’t take the taste anymore and cast a spell towards the food.

Flinx cast the Prestidigitation spell towards their breakfast, which basically adjusted the taste of everything so that it became delicious. That was one of the reasons why Flinx loved the Prestidigitation spell. Everyone was delighted when the taste of the food became delicious, but Christopher looked ashamed.

“I apologized, Christopher. Once your sister earns enough coins from the shop, you go ahead and look for a chef who can teach you how to cook. I’m sure that once you’ve learned enough, you will delight us with the most delicious food,” Flinx comforted the kid who suddenly looked determined.

While they were eating, Olivia told Flinx that she would ask her brothers to look for a shopkeeper whom they could start training to handle the shop so she could start teaching the kids on the shop’s second floor. She assured Flinx that it wouldn’t be difficult to find a shopkeeper since a lot of people need a job and she was willing to pay a competitive salary to a competent salesgirl.

Their plan for the day was that Olivia would handle the shop on the first floor, Christopher would look after the four kids together with one of the golems, while Ambrose would go to the guild to have the whip and the boots from the 30^th floor identified by the wizards there. Once Ambrose was done, he would return to the shop and switch with Christopher, since he would be the one who would look for a salesgirl who would help Olivia in selling the shop’s items. The third golem would remain outside the shop to act as the shop’s guard.

Flinx told Olivia that the shop assistant that she would hire wouldn’t stay with them and would just go to the shop every day like a normal worker. Olivia nodded, understanding that Flinx wasn’t willing to add any more people to the tower.

“What will I do with the whip and the boots once I have them identified?” Ambrose asked.

“If they’re useful to you, keep them and just pay me back once you’re able to delve into dungeons. If not, just sell them and give the coins to your sister for safekeeping.”

“Oohh, since you’re planning to delve into the dungeon every day, that means that you’ll be getting a bunch of items from the dungeon. Maybe we could set aside a space in the shop where we can display the items,” Ambrose said.

Flinx saw that Olivia looked torn while Christopher was ambivalent about Ambrose’s suggestion. Dungeon items would be a sure hit with rich adventurers, but Olivia’s shop mainly catered to women. It would not fit the aesthetic of the shop if it were filled with brawny, stinky adventurers.

“No. Your sister’s shop is mainly geared toward women. Adventurers would destroy the ambiance of the place. If you’re interested, I’ll just throw the items to you. Have them identified, and I’ll keep those that I can use. You sell everything else. You can keep ten percent of the sales after tax,” Flinx told Ambrose, who became excited and cried that he was willing to undertake the job.

Everyone there knew that selling dungeon items was an extremely lucrative business. That was the main reason why Olivia was torn because even though the dungeon items didn’t fit the shop’s aesthetic, they would earn thousands of gold coins from the sales of dungeon items.

Olivia told Flinx that they would also need to leave one of the golems at the shop as a guard, so they didn’t need to hire a guard anymore, and Flinx nodded his approval.

After breakfast, everyone left the tower to do what they needed to do that day. Flinx headed to the dungeon of Mara. He was planning to enter the 40^th floor of the Dungeon of Mara. Once he found the monster there, somewhat still easy to kill, he would head directly to the 50^th floor tomorrow.

Once he arrived at the dungeon’s entrance, Flinx paid the 40 gold coins entrance fee. Because of his Diamond Rank, he didn’t encounter any difficulty entering the lower floors of the Mara Dungeon. The guild staff still advised him that it would be better if he were part of a group for safe delving. He just nodded and ignored what the man from the guild said.

Based on his experience with the dungeon monsters in the dungeon of Mara, Flinx thought that he didn’t need to join any party while delving into the said dungeon. If he found that he needed to transfer to a more difficult dungeon for more experience points, like those diamond rank dungeons, and found that he really would need to join a party to survive, then he would look for one. In the meantime, he would continue to solo the Dungeon of Mara.

Besides, with his 5th-level Conjure Elemental spell, he was already part of a party. At the very least, his summons wouldn’t betray him.

One sad thing was that the information booklet that the guild had given him for 10 gold coins contained very little information past the 39th floor of the Dungeon of Mara. That meant that starting from the 40^th floor and below, he would be going in blind.

Flinx knew that once he entered the 40^th floor, he would have to be much wiser in what kind of elementals he would need to summon. The elementals should be ones that would restrain the dungeon monster on that floor. He also decided not to summon Pip, his owl familiar, because if he did, he would only be able to summon two elementals, and thought that having three elementals to help him kill monsters would be better than having a scout.

Besides, one advantage of the Dungeon of Mara over all other dungeons was its straightforwardness. You enter the floor, move forward, killing monsters along the way until you reach the boss monster; then you’re done. A scout was not absolutely necessary.

If Flinx truly needed a scout so he could check what type of monsters he would meet and prepare the best spells that he could use, he could use his 5th-level Conjure Elemental to summon a wind elemental that could act as a scout and a damage dealer as well. Based on that, though, he decided to go ahead and do that.

Once he entered the floor, Flinx saw that it was a forest. He knew it would be since the booklet did mention it. It was one of the few remaining pieces of information that the guild booklet contained about the Dungeon of Mara.

The first thing he did was cast three 5th-level Conjure Elemental spells that were slotted in the 7th-level spell slot to make sure that his elementals would have the most power based on his level. Flinx had to wait 7 minutes before he could cast the Conjure Elemental spell again since he only had one level 7 spell slot.

Flinx chose a Wind Elemental, an Earth Elemental, and a Water Elemental. The Wind Elemental would be his scout and would also help in dealing damage. The Earth Elemental would be the party’s tank, and the Water Elemental would be support and damage dealer as well. He actually didn’t know how the Water Elemental could function as support, but he assigned that role to the said elemental mentally.

He chose to cast the 5th-level spell Planar Binding while it was slotted in the 5th-level spell slot because Flinx only needed his elementals to last during his delve. He was just glad that, unlike the most famous role-playing tabletop game on Earth, where he felt that his system was based on, he could dispel all spells that had a duration instantly. He didn’t need to wait for his spells to lapse, and he didn’t need to use the actual Dispel spell.