Employee says "Pets only level up by eating crystals and they don't eat anything else. They are souls, like us, so they don't need to eat to live."

  "Can they also level up through combat?"

  Employee says "No. They can assist in combat, but they don't gain anything from it."

  As she is explaining, the employee leads me upstairs to the second floor. At least, I think that the employee is a female, the upper part of the body looks female. The second floor is another huge room, but there are less beasts in this one.

  The beasts are bigger than the ones on the first floor, but just as docile. The two mammoths are easy to spot even though they are on opposite sides of the room. They are both the size of a cow, easily the biggest things in the room.

  It is also easy to tell them apart, one is a short hair and the other is a long hair. As souls they probably don't shed, but I still instantly prefer the short hair. Since that is the only real difference between them, I go ahead and pick that one.

  What surprises me is that it only has four legs, so it looks like a baby elephant from earth. Well, other than the fact that it is covered in short, green fur that is. I inform the employee of my choice and hand over the twelve hundred soul coins.

  After paying for the mammoth, I only have one hundred and fifty soul coins left. I am definitely going to have to do some hunting before I continue exploring the city. I am bound to find more things that I want to buy and not being able to will be torture.

  After counting the money, the employee goes over and brings the mammoth to me. Then she leads us back to the first floor and over to a corner of the room. There is a magic circle carved into the stone of the floor that she has us stand on.

  The circle interests me, but it is written in a magical language that I am not familiar with. Still, I am able to tell that its general function is some form of binding, but I can't tell how it is done. The employee activates the circle and a few seconds later the mammoth disappears.

  *DING*

  Soul Pet, Level 1 Mammoth, Acquired!

  It is weird, but I can feel the mammoth inside me and with a thought it reappears beside me. The employee then explains that the mammoth will only understand the most basic of commands. It has been trained to understand the command to pick things up, but that is all.

  Employee says "Alright, do you have any questions?"

  "At what level do the mammoths' size and intelligence increase?"

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Employee says "Both will increase a little with each level, but level ten will show a bigger increase. I would suggest that you increase the size of your soul palace before it reaches level ten. Otherwise, it will be rather cramped."

  "Alright, noted. What about intelligence?"

  Employee says "Mammoths are a little smarter than other beasts, but you really won't see a big difference until after level ten."

  "Understood. Thank you for your assistance."

  Employee says "Thank you for your business! We hope that you think of us for any future pet needs!"

  When I start walking towards the door, the mammoth automatically stays by my side. It will stay with me unless I give it an order, which makes things simple. Once I am outside, I turn and make the sign appear so I can memorize the shop's name.

  It will probably be a long time before I need another pet, but I will come back here when I do. Since I am out of money, I start trying to find my way back to the city gate. As I am walking, my new pet gets a lot of looks, I guess mammoths really aren't popular.

  However, that doesn't matter to me, from what the employee said this is the best pet for what I need. Although there is a problem, I am going to need to come up with a name for the little guy. I refuse to name him Dumbo, which is the first name that pops into my head.

  However, that is the only elephant name that I can remember, so I will have to think of something else. My next thought is to name him Pumba, but that just feels mean for some reason. Since I can't think of anything for the moment, I decide to name him later.

  After walking for a while, I manage to find a city gate, but not the one I was looking for. I have no idea when I got turned around, learning this city isn't going to be easy. I don't dismiss the mammoth when I leave the city because I am curious what will happen.

  When I return to the hallway I can feel that the mammoth automatically returned to the soul palace. I quickly leave the hallway and head to the soul palace to take a look. Luckily, I designed the soul palace for my size, so the mammoth isn't too uncomfortable.

  However, I decide that since the decorations don't matter, I am going to change things. Instead of the inside of a house, I make it into a field with a few trees and bushes. Then I create a nice big, comfy nest for the mammoth to sleep in.

  The changes don't affect the data storage and the mammoth seems to like them. Since he will be spending a lot of time in here, it only makes sense to make it comfortable. Most beings probably treat their pets as tools, but I just can't bring myself to do that.

  Although, I am going to try not to adopt this mammoth as another child. I don't know if I will be able to succeed, but I am going to at least try my best. I love my kids, but I have enough of them, I don't want to adopt any more if I can help it.

  The fact that the mammoth isn't very intelligent will help, at least for now. As long as it acts like an animal I should be alright, but if it learns to talk I will be in trouble. From what the employee said, I shouldn't have to worry about that until it hits level ten.

  I will need to do a lot of expanding of the soul palace before I level the mammoth up to ten. Then again, I also have no idea how many crystals it is going to take to level it up. I am guessing that it is going to be a lot more than the hundred and fifty that I currently have.

  I will have to feed it a few and see how it goes, but I want to come up with a name first. While I am thinking, I create a brush and give the mammoth a good brushing. He definitely enjoys it, especially when I get to the area behind his ears.

  Once I am done brushing him, I spend some time pushing at the walls of the soul palace. There is no visible progress, but I keep at it until I am mentally exhausted. Then I exit meditation and spend some time working on my crafting.