"Interesting. Alright, Damona, I am Ash. It is a pleasure doing business with you."

  Damona says "I look forward to your next visit!"

  As I leave all I can think is that it is a good thing that I have Lin and Myria. Otherwise, I would absolutely have failed to resist the temptation and done something stupid. Although, as long as we are in Soul City, she shouldn't be able to take my soul.

  Still, it isn't worth the risk, she probably has some way to get around that rule. What really worries me is that I wasn't able to sense her strength, I have no idea what rank of demon she is. For all I know, she might even be stronger than a demon lord.

  I leave the area and start looking for a city gate, but I can't help but think about Damona. Even though nothing happened, I still feel like I have to confess my thoughts to Lin. Well, some of my thoughts anyway, I am not crazy enough to tell her all of them.

  I quickly realize that I have no idea where I am, so I summon Maximus. Since I am going to be wandering around for a while, he may as well come out and enjoy a walk. At this point, I have no hope of finding my way back, any city gate will do.

  After several hours of wandering, I finally find a city gate and return to the hallway. I immediately use the door to return to the cavern world and start building a body. Once my body is built, I appear in the huge cavern that I only partially explored.

  I do a quick check of the area around me and then summon Maximus to my side. Once he is next to me, I start exploring while listening for the buzzing of the insects. However, it is another pack of the lizard-doggo things that I run into first and have to deal with.

  9 Wolfizards defeated! 45,000 Soul Exp gained!

  Loot: 4,131 Soul Coins, 2 Soul Crystals, Armor Bracers +2 Defense!

  While they are not what I am looking for, I am not about to pass up on the exp. I still need to increase my soul by another level so that the dragon will let me play in the battlefield. That is still the goal for all of this, even if I have gotten just a little bit side-tracked.

  However, that can’t continue for much longer, I can’t keep putting things off forever. For now, I just hope to make Maximus a little more comfortable before I get distracted with real world things. Otherwise, I am going to feel really guilty about leaving him trapped in my soul palace.

  Once Maximus is done collecting the loot, and eating the crystals, we resume exploring. He runs off a few times to collect plants, but so far I haven’t seen another plant with purple flowers. I was hoping to find another, just in case it turns out to be something valuable.

  We continue exploring for a while before I finally hear the buzzing that I am looking for. It is not coming from the cavern itself, but from one of the connected tunnels. Before doing anything else, I retrieve the jar that Leafa gave me from my soul palace.

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  With it in hand, I head down the tunnel and move towards where the buzzing is coming from. I was expecting to end up in another cavern, but I run into the swarm in the tunnel. I really don’t want to see what the swarm can do to me, so I throw a lightning field across the tunnel.

  Then, as the swarm is flying to its death, I reach through with the jar and sweep some up. Then I quickly seal the jar, there are a couple of dozen flies inside, it should be enough. After that, I just calmly watch as the rest of the swarm flies to its death in the lightning.

  4,274,467 Blood Flies defeated! 42,744 Soul Exp gained!

  *DING*

  Congratulations! Your Soul Level Has Increased!

  Level 7 -> 8! Soul HP +500, Soul MP +1,000!

  With that, I managed to complete both of my goals in one go, this has been a nice trip. With the coins that Leafa has promised me I should be able to afford a couple of materials. That will give Maximus at least a little more room to move around in the palace.

  Now, my focus is going to shift to completing the next stage of my evolution. Which means I am going to need to take a trip down to the land bridge to do some hunting. On my way, I should probably stop and visit the tribes of beastmen that haven’t joined us yet.

  However, there are things that I need to arrange before I can leave on that kind of trip. Mainly, I need to make sure that there are no demons in the empire that can threaten my plans. Before that, I head back to Soul City and make my way to Leafa’s plant shop.

  Or at least I try to, I end up getting turned around somehow and find Damona’s shop instead. Luckily, I still remember the directions Leafa gave me and am able to reverse them. It is kind of annoying how easy it is to get lost, but I do manage to get to her shop.

  Leafa says “Welcome back, Ash. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

  “I got lucky and was able to get the bugs on the first try.”

  Leafa says “Oh, great! Let me see them!”

  “Here you go.”

  Leafa says “Hm, they don’t seem special. In fact, they look pretty harmless.”

  “In small numbers they probably are, but every swarm I saw had a couple of million bugs.”

  Leafa says “That would be a different story. How did you deal with such huge numbers?”

  “My specialty is lightning and it is perfect for dealing with large groups.”

  Leafa says “That makes sense. Well, these should be enough to experiment with. Here are thirty thousand coins, as promised.”

  30,000 Soul Coins Gained!

  “Thank you. I also picked up a couple more plants for you, but I want to trade them if you have more of this one?”

  Leafa says “You want to use the plants to expand the soul palace? That is a very slow process. I do have some, let me see what you want to trade.”

  “Here, this is what Maximus found this time.”

  Leafa says “Hm, I will give you two bushes for these.”

  “Alright, works for me.”

  Leafa says “These bushes do have an effect on the soul palace, but it takes a lot of them for it to be noticeable.”

  “That’s fine. I have a lot of responsibilities in the real world, so anything will help.”

  Leafa says “Alright, just don’t get your hopes up.”

  I thank Leafa, take the two bushes and leave her shop, then I enter my soul palace. I take the two bushes, plus two more that Maximus found and plant them with the other three. The seven of them probably won’t have much effect, but it can’t hurt either.