As soon as I had distanced myself from the mayor's office, I found a discreet corner and removed my disguise.

It was already 2 p.m., so I had already missed meeting up with Ellie and Cara for lunch but I figured we could maybe still grab a coffee and they could maybe help me choose some clothing, as I was still dressed in my brother's clothes.

I decided to give them a call.

"Hey Ellie, it's Matt, are you still in town, can we meet up somewhere?"

"Matt, yeah, we're at the mall, give me a call when you get here and we'll meet at the coffee shop where I used to work."

About 20 minutes later we were together at the coffee shop and ordered our coffees, but from the look on Ellie's face she was waiting for an explanation.

"I'm sorry Ellie, I had a few things to do this morning and then something unexpected came up. Sorry I am late."

"Would that 'something unexpected' happen to be what has been on the news all day?"

"So, you heard?" was all I could think of to say.

"I think that everyone from here to the Australian outback has heard about it. I am just happy that you are alive but you are taking way too many risks. That rat thing looked really dangerous."

"if you think that was dangerous, you should have seen the boss, the Dungeon decided to bring the level 10 boss to level 1."

Cara spit the coffee she had been sipping. "Don't tell me you fought the giant boss from my floor?"

"That depends, is it about 8 meters tall with thick black scales, four legs, 2 giant arms with claws, a giant head full of sharp teeth and heals almost instantly when wounded? If so, then yes, that's the one we got."

"No one can kill that boss, it takes a full team of high-level mages, and even then most of them end up injured or killed. That was why I asked the Dungeon to let you leave before finishing the level." Cara said, honestly concerned.

Now it was my turn to choke on my coffee. "You asked the Dungeon to let me out early so I wouldn't have to face that thing?

"Don't get me wrong, I know some guys would be offended, but I think that you most likely saved my life. I never would have been able to beat that thing on my first day. Thank you, honestly. Even today it was a really close call, that thing was death incarnate.

By the way, before I forget, something I have been meaning to ask you; does the tower have a name? There are a lot of towers so I would assume they must have names."

"Yes, your tower is named Eternua, it is one of the oldest in existence."

"You told me the dungeon was special, but is there something wrong with the Dungeon? I mean sometimes he seems almost fatherly, and the next second it seems like he is trying to get me killed. It often acts like it has a personality disorder."

"I think someone discovered Will's real name. Names have power and when someone gets the name of a tower core, or consciousness, they have a certain power over it. They can make it do things.

"I am pretty sure It is the tower champion who goes by the name Antonius, he was a powerful ascender, but his heart is evil. I don't think that he wants you to be the champion for this tower for some reason."

"Where is this Antonius?"

"He travels between planets through the towers, but his home planet is Evola, no one can stand up to him. He is extremely powerful." She hesitated a moment before continuing. "Maybe, just maybe, you could defeat him, but most likely you would die. I think that you may be more powerful than he is, but he has much more experience and he's ruthless. Maybe in a few years you may be able to face him."

Ellie just sat there listening to us, in a stunned silence looking back and forth between the two of us.

I decided to change the subject.

"So, Cara, did you find any clothing that you like?"

"Oh, everything here is so beautiful, I bought loads of shoes, blouses, dresses and handbags and other accessories." She held up at least 6 shopping bags. "Thank you for taking such good care of me! Honestly, I have never met anyone like you, I don't understand how you are still single." She put her hand on mine and I felt my face getting hot and I started to feel my heart beating rapidly.

"If you two don't mind, I really could use some clothes, and I have zero fashion sense so would you mind helping me to choose a new wardrobe? I would really appreciate it. I don't have much time though, so we would have to go fast."

Cara looked excited at the idea, and Ellie loved shopping and often helped me pick my clothes, so the next hour we spent picking out my new wardrobe. Actually, I just stayed in the dressing room and they kept throwing clothes over the door.

When I felt I had enough, I paid for the clothes and asked Ellie and Cara to bring them back home for me as I still had a couple of other stops I needed to make before returning.

Once I left the shopping center, I re-donned my disguise and took a taxi back to the gold dealer I had dealt with my first day back.

"Good afternoon Mr. Rossetti"

"Good afternoon..."

"Xander, you can call me Xander."

"Good afternoon Xander, I am glad to see you returned."

"I told you I would be back. I still have quite a few coins, gems and beast cores, if you are still interested." and I could clearly see he was.

"I think I can still find some buyers, and I could get you some really big money for one of those healing potions. I don't know if you would be willing to part with one of them." Joey said, hoping to tempt me with the promise of money.

"As you can probably tell, I lead an extremely dangerous life and those healing potions are often the difference between life and death. But if I can get a few extra, I would be happy to sell them for a fair price. And I know for some rich person on his death bed, one of those would be absolutely priceless"

"My thought exactly," he said, "and I even happen to know a few."

"I will keep that in mind." I said.

"I have come here for 2 reasons today:

"The first is to see if you would be interested in setting up shop closer to the tower. I spoke with the mayor, and she is interested in setting up an official shop for buying and selling items gathered in the Dungeon. It would supply you a very profitable business, but it would need to be on the up and up. Correct ledgers, taxation, fair prices.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Any decent unenchanted items I could enchant, adding runes to some of the items would increase the value significantly, for a cut of the profits of course.

"What do you think? We won't see people entering the Dungeon much for the next couple of months, so that gives you some time to setup."

"As far as opening a shop close to the tower, just tell me where to sign."

"Great! Just contact the mayor's office, ask for Sophie or David and say Xander sent you. They are looking for a location for the academy and they can help you find a location for your shop close by. You may need to hire some extra security once mages start appearing."

The second reason I came, is to see if you are able to buy more coins and cores and maybe some gems. That is, if you have the funds, which I suspect you do.

"I have enough cash to buy some more stuff if you show me what you got. And I think I will have no trouble finding buyers."

"Now let's see what you can buy from me today."

I laid out an assortment of gold coins, beast cores and various gems.

"Oh, Is this all you got?" He said joking.

"No, there's a lot more where that came from" I said, and I dumped my full load of gold and jewels and cores onto the floor next to me.

I thought he was going to have a heart attack when he saw the pile lying on the floor.

"For crying out loud, your richer than the Count of Monte Cristo!" Joey said, his eyes big like saucers.

I returned everything back into my dimensional storage with just a thought.

"As I said, I have plenty to sell If you have the money and the buyers."

In reality I was hoping to be able to sell most of my treasures before the dungeon opened as I suspected the price could drop once there were more ascenders.

We agreed on a price for a 4 carat Ruby, a 3 Carat emerald, 5 gold coins an, 4 spider beast cores. Joey surprised me again with how much money he had on hand. Much more than the first time I dealt with him.

I now had much more money than I got for our first transaction, and I suspected that he was reselling with a very decent profit margin.

As we were now entering a business relationship, I gave him my number and told him to ask for Xander if he was in a position to buy more.

"Would you know if there is a metal shop nearby, where I could get some decent quality steel?"

"Sure, 2 blocks down that way. Freddy's metal shop. Tell him Joey Rossetti sent you and you'll get a good deal."

"Thanks, I said as I headed out of the store. I will be seeing you again. Good luck with your new venture!"

A couple of blocks further I found Freddy's shop. I wanted to make my own weapons but I lacked the raw materials and I didn't know very much about metallurgy. My earth attribute allowed me to manipulate metal, especially when I heated it first, but I wasn't sure if the quality would be comparable to metal which was worked with a forge and a Hammer.

When I entered the shop, I found Freddy hammering a piece of heated metal on his anvil. and I only managed to get his attention with a bit of difficulty as he was wearing earplugs.

"Hi, Freddy. My name is Xander, Joey Rossetti said that you could help me."

"Any friend oh Joey's is a friend of mine, how can I help you?"

The man looked to be around 40 and was built like an ox and when he looked up, his face was friendly and sincere.

"I am working on a project, and I need a hammer, but I lack the raw materials and I don't know what type of metal would be best."

"What kind of hammer are you looking to make?"

"A metal mallet, a bit like the hammer Thor would use."

"Haha, Thor's hammer, that would be like a large steel workers hammer, I think that I have one of those lying around here somewhere, there not used much anymore, too heavy. Now everything is done by machines, but I still mostly work the old way. I love the feeling of a hammer, pounding metal.

"Here, I think this would be what you need, but it a bit worn."

"That's not a problem, do you have any scraps of the same type of metal that I could get?"

"Sure, there's a bunch of scraps over there in the corner, take what you need."

I took most of the metal as I was planning on creating a number of weapons over the next few days.

"How much do I owe you for all this?"

"As your Joey's friend I'll sell it to you at cost. That would be 200$ as most of that metal is stainless.

"I handed 500$."

"I don't have change for 500$.

"Keep the change, but I have a bit of a crazy question for you. Would you be able to create high quality swords, daggers, and hammers? I don't know if you are aware of it, but the Dungeon will probably be opening in a few months and a Smith capable of forging weapons could have quite a business. And from what you just told me, it sounds like you would be perfect for the job."

"If you are interested, give me a call, here is my number. You could set up a shop by the academy once they choose a location. It should be close to the tower. Joey will be setting up shop there as well.

"Well, business has been slow, and I have the know how so I am definitely interested, thanks!"

" If you need a loan to get setup, I may be able to help you out. If you want you can pay me back with a percentage of the profits, and I suspect that you may be needing a couple of employees, there should be a lot of work coming your way."

"Well, I have my son who knows his way around metal, so I think he will be interested. He hasn't stopped talking about the tower for days now."

"I will contact the mayor's office and have them get in touch with you. Good luck!"

As soon as I left the shop, I called the mayor's office and got Sophie on the line. I let her know about Joey and Freddy and gave her the coordinates. I also spoke with the mayor. I knew I was pushing my luck, but I realized that with all the money I was making, I could probably afford to pay for a large part of the real estate for the shops and the academy. I let her know that if she could find a way to legalize it, I was willing to invest in the land and the buildings. She seemed to like the idea as financing was often one of the biggest hurdles in politics.

Now that I had most of the business out of the way, I found a quiet corner of a park, and I took out the mana healing gem I had received in the Dungeon. This was something that really interested me a lot, not only for healing, but also for using mana to transform and manipulate the functions of the body.

I had no idea what would be possible, but I was sure that I could use this information to do things that went past simple healing.

When I saw no one was watching, I placed the stone against my forehead and concentrated on every detail that flashed in front of me as it flooded my brain. Not only did I learn healing techniques using mana, but I also learned the composition of every organ, tissue, bone and micro structure of the body. I saw how everything in the body worked together to form a thinking functioning living being and how mana could be used to regenerate and transform these elements.

I also learned the limitations. There was a natural mana barrier, which protected against mana entering the body uninvited. This prevented someone from reaching into a person’s body with mana and stopping his heart for example.

In the case of healing, the one being healed had to allow the healer's mana to pass through and the mana needed to be compatible. For this reason, mana was primarily used for self-healing as there was a high risk of incompatibility.

There was an exception to this in the case of pure mana. Someone who possessed pure mana could pass the barrier even without permission and globally compatible. This was similar to the mana from beast cores, which was generally compatible but needed to be accepted by the host.

I spent the next few minutes in meditation, letting my mana expand outside of the channels and spread through every sell of my body. I learned to see my body through my mana almost as though I was seeing it with my eyes. I watched the cells dying, splitting, interacting. I watched the energy flowing through my muscles and the hormones reacting to signals they received. The complexity was mind staggering.

This knowledge opened a whole new world to me and I wanted to test my new ability.

I created a thin blade of mana and made a 10 cm incision on my arm. I then looked at the cut with my mana sense and used the healing mana to reform the skin, melding it together, encouraging the skin to close the wound and re-join the skin cells, molecule by molecule, until the wound was closed without any scarring visible.

It was a minor test on a minor wound but it still felt incredible.

I remembered Will saying that my aura was pure but I wondered if my mana was pure as well. I could manipulate all of the elements with ease, so I thought that there was a good chance that I could use my mana for healing others, and I assumed that was probably why he gave me the healing memory stone. I found that most things that Will did had a reason behind them no matter how crazy he often acted, there was almost always a logic to his actions.

As it was already getting late in the day, I decided to head back home to the family.