The last week was dedicated to delving into the Zhu'Rong Caverns Dungeon, specifically reaching the Gate of Hades and even going past it.
With that time leading up to this week, Anput had finished our chainmail entirely, as well as a set of bracers for Leone and I as well as a set of gauntlets for Jahi and herself, whilst also making a set of boiled Firefang leather tunics for Leone and I, having gotten our measurements earlier.
Jahi had a metal cuirass that matched Anput's, the Jackalkin having put herself into overdrive these last few days as she prepared us for the excursion, taking great pride in having outfitted us with gear better than what we had before.
It was far from perfect, but for her first set of armor, this was far above what we were expecting, and I did feel a bit more comfortable having some true armor that almost matched the areas that we were delving into; steel could get shredded easily by the Spartoi and Drakes near the Gate of Hades, while this alloy might at least withstand a blow or two before being destroyed.
That was enough for me, and considering the Gate of Hades contained stronger materials for us to use, well... that meant that with her newfound understanding on how to make armor, Anput could increase our quality of gear once again.
And so, we delved into Zhu'Rong Caverns and began to put our new skills to the test, completing some Requests as a party and earning some coin for our troubles as we started first at the magma lake, before creeping ever closer to the Gate of Hades.
Each delve into the Dungeon yielded us dozens of Gold, a large quantity of materials, and so much experience for me, making the last few days so worth it from a reward standpoint, but it wasn't as helpful as all the theory crafting and practice that we put in the weeks before.
Sure, we could easily pierce a Firefang's skull and kill it with a single thrust, but we wouldn't have been able to do that without the new weapons Anput provided, the items I gifted us, and the harsh tempering that Lady Fenryas put us through.
My old daggers, enchanted or not, weren't capable of puncturing that easily through Firefang bone, unless I used magic to artificially enhance the sharpness of my blades and empower my body.
However, the rapier that Anput forged for me was capable of piercing the thick bone plate that was the Firefang's skull with ease, while Leone's Estoc caused even more damage with its longer blade.
Besides that, the various low level monsters were far more wary of us now that we wielded gear made from monster alloy, the armor radiating a natural repellent to monsters of a certain strength and freeing our time as we simply walked through the Ash Ghoul Hordes instead of cutting them down.
As for the stronger monsters, they took us more serious because of that, making some of the fights a bit harder as we were shown a different style from those monsters now that they were aiming to kill right away instead of toying with their prey.
Which was for the better as we got to utilize more of our own serious techniques to counter the monsters, resulting in a better understanding of our more advanced techniques and magics, giving us the opportunity to look them over and polish them further back home.
Because of the constant delves into the Dungeon, experience had shot straight up compared to before, with each delve netting me somewhere near 175,000 to 225,000 experience each time, which...
Brought me up another level, giving me a free stat point to use as well as some more shop points, so my new totals looked :
Of course, that wasn't all we did during those remaining days; we made sure to take breaks and rest the mind, and the form of which that took was rather obvious.
Spending time with Lakshmi and Alessandra, who were both becoming more and more active and smarter by the day; they played together whenever Alessandra wanted, napped the rest of the time, or just remained sitting on one of their parents laps, curiously watching whatever they were doing.
For Lakshmi, this seemed to be the greatest thing ever as she alternated between rolling a ball between her and her sister, fighting her sister with dolls, reading with the Marquess, sleeping on the Marquess' lap, or sleeping in Mother's lap.
She was enjoying everything immensely, and even more so whenever she did those things with Jahi, forcing the Demoness to acclimate to handling a child quickly since her younger sister was so determined to be around her.
As for Alessandra, she much preferred to study alongside the Countess or nap, but when she deemed Lakshmi far too annoying or energetic, she played with her sister before tactfully retreating when someone else joined in, making us all chuckle at how she acted.
These moments were peaceful and precious to us all, and we did our best to cherish them whenever we could, especially with the Marquess trying to hide more and more evil smirks as she plotted off to the side, much to Mother and the Countess' chagrin as they wondered if she was as much of a child as the two little ones.
Without much to go off of, we were stuck preparing in a broad manner on that final day, remaining inside as we got our gear together and tried to plan for everything, allocating potions and tasks to each other in preparation for what was to come.
There was only so much prep work to be done though, so we steeled our nerves and decided that instead of thinking about it, we would toss it aside and enjoy each other instead, relying on ol' faithful to get us through these last hours.