Tom explained his plan to the team and over the next couple of weeks, the guild began to put it into place. First, a team of rogues was brought together to begin training with Jay. They went out every day to fight monsters as a tactical team and trained in the hidden arts. While this went on, Tom and the other strike teams began going out to work on party formations and battle tactics.

When they finished this initial training, Derek reached level twenty-three, James was level twenty-two, and Tom reached level twenty-five. As a matter of fact, the entire group they had chosen for the plan had made it to at least level twenty. Looking over his stat sheet, Tom was pleased with how things were going.

Tom Harris

Race: Human

Class: Warlock

Level: 25

Total XP: 826,450

XP To Next Level: 66,550

HP: 450/450

MP: 470/470

SP: 330/330

Attributes:

Unused Attributes Points: 0

Strength: 40

Constitution: 45

Dexterity: 30

Endurance: 33

Intelligence: 47

Wisdom: 40

Charisma: 80

Luck: 20

Non-Combat Skills:

Inspect

Level: 10, Rank: Novice

Combat Skills:

Vehicular Homicide

Level: 22, Rank: Initiate

Swords

Level: 19 Rank: Novice

Summon Demonic Creature

Level: 25 Rank: Initiate

Fear

Level: 7 Rank: Beginner

Corruption

Level: 5 Rank: Beginner

Spells:

Eldritch Blast

Level: 12, Rank: Novice

Dark Ball

Level: 8, Rank: Beginner

Dark Healing

Level: 11, Rank: Novice

His skills and spells were ranking up now as well with most rising out of the beginner range of their ranking. Gathering everyone from the strike teams and Jay's special team in the gym for a meeting, Tom spoke to them about what Bob had told them about the vending machines.

"I know we have told you some of this before, but it's time to put it into practice. The Vending Machines do so much more than we have been using them for. Once you place your hand on the machine and it reads your class, you can take your hand off the machine and use the menus to search for other items to purchase. We are going to be doing that today. I didn't want anyone spending cores on new equipment until we saw where you were going to be with your levels so we could buy the best gear for that stage of your growth." Tom began explaining why they were gathered there.

The people assembled looked at each other, realization dawning on them about what they were missing.

"Yeah, feel like an idiot later. We have work to do. I want everyone to spend some time today getting the best gear you can. We need to be as prepared as possible if we want this to work out. It's not going to be easy and I can't promise anyone's safety. But we chose you because you are the most prepared. We spent this time investing in you because we believe you have what it takes. We will end this one way or the other." Tom said, rising in volume as he went watching the determination swell in the faces of everyone listening.

Tom had gone to the vending machine before assembling everyone with Bob, Derek, and James to do some testing of the process. When he placed his hand on the machine it did its standard change to show him items that fit his class better. But it was still showing the basic items it showed him every time he did that. Removing his hand from the screen, Tom noticed that it had changed to be a list of menus. The items were listed there showing the category of items it could give him.

Armor, Weapons, Food, Parts, Potions, Poisons, and Miscellaneous. When he selected Weapons, a sub-menu opened showing new options. Projectiles, Slashing, Piercing, Blunt, and Unconventional. Curious, Tom selected Unconventional. Selecting this made the machine change to show new items on the cans. War fan, whip, chakram, and other weapons showed up as equipment he could purchase.

Backing out of this menu, Tom went to Slashing instead as he had been using a sword up until this point. Another set of sub-menu options appeared. Sword, Greatsword, Dagger, Sickle, Axe, Greataxe, Spear, Polearm, Swallow, along with a few other options were available. Tom paused on Swallow and selected it. The machine changed again.

A few items were replaced with what appeared to be a weapon that had two sword blades connected at the pommels to make a single sword.

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"Oh, cool! Like Darth Maul!" Tom had said upon finding the weapon.

"You'll kill yourself with that before you kill anyone else. If you haven't trained with it, don't pick an exotic weapon just because it looks cool please." Derek had chimed in, seeing the weapon Tom was looking at.

"Yeah, that makes sense. Too bad. It looks badass." Tom sulked for a moment before going back to the menu and selecting Greatsword.

Selecting Greatsword caused the machine to change once more. This time there were five selections. Looking at them and reading over the basic descriptions, Tom selected the option for F4 after putting in what equated to one hundred and fifty-six common cores, and the can was dispensed. Grabbing the can from the slot at the bottom, Tom opened the can.

After the initial chhhttssssss sound of the can opening and the smoke cleared, Tom was holding a beautiful greatsword that looked like it had just come out of an anime.

Item: Greatsword of Hell's Inferno

Item Type

Weapon, Slashing, Two-handed

Durability

2500/2500

Attack

35-50

Item Quality

Excellent

Item Rarity

Epic

Weapon Ability: Dark Inferno - Activating Dark Inferno causes the blade of this weapon to be bathed in dark flames, causing additional Dark and Fire damage

Open Slots

2

"Hey Bob, what does open slots mean on a weapon?" Tom asked the old man, feeling happy he had brought him along for questions.

"It means you can equip it with a weapon crystal. Weapon crystals are magic stones that give a weapon additional properties or skills. They should be located in the miscellaneous category." Bob explained moving to look at the sword Tom was holding.

The blade of the sword was a deep red color bordering on the color of dried blood. It stood about five-and-a-half feet tall and had a pommel in the shape of a sun complete with spikes protruding from it to make any attacks with it more painful. The crossguards were shaped like flames and extended out in curving patterns on the hilt.

Tom was pretty sure this was the first Epic-grade item as well as an Excellent crafting rank he had seen so far. Its crafting was superb. What would higher-ranked items look like? And twenty-five hundred durability?! This thing would be able to take a severe beating and keep going.

Getting excited about the type of stone he could equip, Tom went straight to the miscellaneous category and found the option for crystals, then weapon crystals. There were so many it had to list them again. It wouldn't have fit all the options in the machine. Two of the stones stood out to Tom and he selected both of them as the machine changed the options once more to show his selections.

Looking at the prices, Tom almost felt sick. But he coughed up the two hundred and twenty-five monster cores and bought both stones. After opening the cans, he was left with a small sickly green colored stone in one hand and a clear stone that looked a bit like a diamond. He inspected the greatsword again and focused on the open slots.

Available Weapon slots: 2

Would you like to equip a weapon crystal to Greatsword of Hell's Fury?

Yes

No

Selecting yes, Tom was shown a window with his two stones.

Weapon Stone: Self Repair

When equipped, this stone gives the wielder the ability to infuse the weapon with mana to repair durability. This cannot be used if the weapon is completely broken

Weapon Stone: Life Leech

When equipped, this stone will steal a small bit of HP from an opponent when struck with the blade, transferring it to the wielder of the weapon.

Tom selected first the Self Repair crystal and it appeared in the slot already attached to the weapon. Next, he selected the Life Leech crystal, and it too was attached to the sword. Inspecting the greatsword again, he saw there were now two icons next to its name. A green skull and a hammer. Focusing on them brought up the descriptions of what the crystals did.

"Neat!" Tom said after the stones were in place.

Returning to the vending machine, Tom looked at the Armor options and bought some upgraded medium armor as well. The chainmail he bought because he thought it would look cool while being functional, but it turned out to be much heavier than he thought and was a hassle. Fortunately, with the automagic resizing, Derek bought it off of him for what he paid for it. It did have a special deflection enchantment on it that would add additional defense against projectiles in a fight. But Tom would have been too restricted for his weapon of choice.

"Why do you keep saying automagic when you talk about the System's auto-resizing function for armor?" Bob said.

"It started when James said automagically instead of automatically for resizing armor, and it just kind of stuck," Tom explained. "I guess it's a bit of a terrible inside joke now."

In the end, Tom decided on picking Studded leather for his chest piece, metal greaves, and bracers, as well as Kevlar pants. The other options didn't seem like they would be comfortable to wear and he didn't want to look funny.

"In video games, we always wore whatever was the best armor. Why not pick those?" James had asked.

"Because I don't want to look like I'm wearing a skirt with the best pants options." Tom rebutted, staring at him with confusion.

"Okay, but it could be a kilt, right? Can you say freeballing?" James asked.

"No, these pants are fine. They may not stop a real bullet, but they should at least give me some protection from a blade if it hits my leg." Tom replied. "Stop bugging me about it, this is what I want."

"Fine. Touchy much?" James teased.

Looking at the machine again, he also bought steel-toed tactical boots. Still having cores left, Tom also bought some mana, stamina, and health potions. He picked up a Colt 1911 as well for another one hundred and fifty cores along with four magazines and two thousand rounds of ammo.

"Can't be too safe. Everyone needs at least one gun in their inventory." Derek said, agreeing with Tom's choice of a weapon.

"Is there anything else I might need?" Tom asked.

"Of course. But let's think about combat for now. How about some knuckle dusters?" Derek asked.

"I don't even know where that would be in the menu," Tom said looking at the screen again.

"Just ask it for what you want if you know the name of the specific item," Bob said, now reading a book in the corner of the room while they made their choices.

"Really? Hey, vending machine, can you show me knuckle dusters?" Tom spoke timidly to the machine.

"Just say, show me knuckle dusters," Bob said, still not looking up as he turned a page.

The machine still seemed to understand him and made changes to show a can with the picture of a dagger with what appeared to be brass knuckles attached to it.

"Holy fuck! Those look brutal!" Tom said shocked at the image on the can.

"That's the idea. They were used in the trenches in World War One. Here they will help if you get caught in close combat and need to be brutal." Derek explained. "I'd advise two."

Tom made the purchases and added the weapons to his inventory. Satisfied for now and much lighter on monster cores, Tom let the others make their selections as well.

Derek had chosen a mace that had one weapon stone slot but allowed him to make an area-of-effect attack once every hour that would throw enemies away from him in all directions as well as added earth elemental damage to his attacks. He continued with his heavier armor with metal-plated pants, gauntlets that nearly came to his elbows, a helmet, and steel-toed boots as well.

He also picked up a nine-millimeter sig saur, several magazines, and two thousand rounds. A new shield was on his shopping list and he found one that was a heater shape and had a reflect skill that he could activate with the use of stamina. Lastly, Derek also bought two of the knuckle dusters along with a set of potions.

James made some interesting choices, going with an assault rifle, brass knuckles, steel-toed boots, tactical gear for being more maneuverable, potions, magic gloves with a skill for steadying his hands when he was aiming, night vision goggles, more magazines for all his weapons, twenty- thousand bullets of varying calibers, wolf treats, a tennis ball, and a spell called Hunter's Mark which let him choose a target and when he fired a projectile at it his accuracy was increased by fifty percent.

Once Tom, Derek, and James had finished answering questions from the group assembled they let them use the machine to make their own purchases. About three hours later, everyone had a full set of new gear. Most were not as nice as Tom and his core team, but they were a definite upgrade from their previous gear. Tom had even shared some cores with those who needed a little extra to get the best gear they could afford.

When they had all finished with their selections and had read over their gear's effects, Tom spoke once more to them.

"Alright, everyone. It's time to begin setting the plan in motion!"