The dungeon we were tackling was an arachne den. Arachnes are like centaurs but with a spider bottom half. Obviously, no one had defeated the spider queen yet. That's what the Culling Party supposedly needed the extra help for. They wanted to go all the way, rather than just kill off a horde of smaller spiders.

  I would be against killing anything that was half human, if they were just minding their own business, but apparently these arachnes snatched people at night and brought them back to the den. So I guessed I was killing spider people today. I glared at the back of Valda's head.

  I knew she couldn't help it, but to be this clueless. Come on! That said, I was the weaker one of the two of us, so I'll admit we did complement one another. The culling party was so obvious in their vibe that I bet I knew exactly how they were going to betray us.

  We'd fight our way through the spider horde, get to the queen, and then they'd seal us in somehow. They'd wait until we softened the spider queen up, but eventually she killed us, and then they'd come in and finish her off. Pretty standard party betrayal shenanigans.

  I couldn't necessarily blame Valda for not knowing this. The only reason I knew it was because of books and tv shows in my past life. She didn't have a past life to draw on. She was new to this whole adventuring business. She hadn't experienced treachery yet.

  I was formulating my response plan. The action that would keep me the most on Valda's good side was just let them betray us, defeat the queen and then defeat the Culling party after they came back. The question was, were we strong enough for that?

  Valda and I were level 6. These guys were level 8, and even they didn't think they could defeat the queen without losing someone. So what chance did we have of defeating the spider queen and defeating them?

  I'd have to pull something out of my butt like I always did. At least I was mildly prepared. I had infinity bags with every crafting material you could think of, short of gunpowder.

  Speaking of gunpowder, I had been keeping an eye and an ear out for it, but so far I hadn't heard or seen anything that resembled it. It looked like I would have to make it myself, and I wasn't high enough level in alchemy to invent it yet.

  I had a master (6) level in alchemy, but that only takes into account the current level of technology. Actually inventing new formulas took higher levels of proficiency.

  Essentially, I would have to level up at least once to be able to invent gunpowder. And then there was the fact that I was only an expert (5) in blacksmithing. I would need at least innovator (7) level proficiency in it to invent a gun.

  No, I couldn't rely on guns to get me out of this mess. I was turning the weird rock I got from the wizard over and over in my hands. It occurred to me it might be magical. If it was magical, then how could I activate it?

  Likely, by sending mana through it. I concentrated and sent 20 mana into the stone. Suddenly, it changed shape. It smoothed out and became round like a sphere. Then a cube, then a cylinder. I realized I was shaping it with my mind, just by thinking of different shapes.

  I experimented with more complex shapes. First, I made a knife, then a mug, then I tried to make a gun. Not the first gun ever invented, but not a super complex gun either. I went for a flintlock pistol, like the ones my pirate idols used.

  It started to take shape, but before I could finish, Patriculus put his hand on my shoulder.

  "Stop playing around," he said. " We need to stay alert. Danger is approaching."

  "Ok," I said.

  I tried not to sound annoyed, but I was ready to pop him in the mouth. Playing around? I'd show him what playing around looked like. I wanted to just poke them all with a poison tipped crossbow bolt. That would take them out quick.

  I'd get at least two before anyone realized what was happening. There were so many ways to get these guys before they got us, but I couldn't take them. Valda's opinion of me mattered too much. Oh well. I'd make do with what I could control, rather than crying over spilt milk.

  We made it to the entrance of the cave that made up the arachnes den. As we walked inside, I noticed the sharp, acrid smell of hydrogen sulfide. And where there was hydrogen sulfide, there was sulfur.

  I noticed on the ground and walls was a light white dusting of something. In some areas, it was even accumulated into small piles. Hmm. With a master (6) level proficiency in alchemy, I recognized it as saltpeter.

  Saltpeter was a useful ingredient in fertilizer and some other processes, so I gathered all of the piles into non-infinity bags and dropped them in an infinity bag. The bags were so it didn't get all over everything in there.

  I didn't know if that was how it worked, but it was better to be safe than sorry. I didn't gather any of the light dustings, but I would keep my eye out for crystal formulations of the stuff, because it could show up that way too.

  "Hey!" Cul said. "What are you doing? You should be watching our backs, not collecting dirt!"

  "It's not dirt," I said. "It's saltpeter. And I am watching your backs. I'm just also collecting 'dirt', as you said. I don't know about you, but I can multitask."

  "Hmph," he said. "Whatever. Just don't be collecting 'ingredients' when shit gets serious."

  "I won't," I said. I pulled out one of my hand crossbows. "Better?"

  "Yeah," he said. "Good."

  Valda was farther up in the group, so she didn't hear or see any of Patriculus's antagonism towards me. I doubt he would do it in front of her face. She was the one he thought he had to convince.

  She was the one he thought was strong, while I wasn't even worth convincing. He saw me as some tag-a-long boy. Maybe a childhood friend of Valda's who could never let go of his feelings.

  Good. Let him be that way. It made it all that much easier to pull the trigger when the time came. I put my hand behind my back so he couldn't see me practicing manipulating the shape of the rock.

  I kept practicing configuring it into a flintlock pistol, and then back to a sphere. I couldn't quite form the pistol, but I figured if I tried enough times, I'd eventually get it.

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  'You have leveled up! You are now level 7!' the system displayed in front of my eyes. I must have gained experience from manipulating the rock. I liked that it was silent, but impossible to ignore. If it made noise, it might prevent me from hearing things happening in the real world.

  I put another point in intelligence, bringing me up to (11). Another thing popped up in front of me. 'Your intelligence has increased above 10. You get to choose a perk! You will gain a new perk for every additional level you gain above 10. Some perks can be upgraded to more powerful versions as you continue to increase this stat.'

  'Does that apply to all stats?' I thought.

  'Protip: This applies to all stats,' it said.

  Hmm. This was a nice bonus. I wondered what perks you could get from other stats. It probably wouldn't be worth it for me to invest the amount of points required to find out, though. The perks available were listed.

  Faster Crafting: Increase crafting speed by 100%.

  Efficient Crafting: Reduce material cost by 40%.

  Brilliant Inventor: Reduce the proficiency level requirement to invent something new by 2 on one skill, or by 1 on two skills. Does not affect the level requirements to manufacture known materials or items, unless it is a previous invention. Previous inventions require 2 less proficiency levels to produce.

  Accelerated Comprehension: Increase learning speed by 100%.

  Arcane Infusion: Add general magic damage to your attacks. The additional damage is 40% of your total damage count. (General magic damage gets through non-magic defense, but it doesn't activate weaknesses like elemental magic damage)

  These all looked great, but I knew what I had to take. Brilliant Inventor. I was hoping I'd be able to use it to invent something to get me and Valda out of this mess. I didn't know what it would be, but I knew I'd think of something.

  Next, I had a proficiency level to add. I raised my blacksmithing skill to master (6) proficiency to match alchemy (6) and enchanting (6). I was so close to being able to invent revolutionary things in multiple disciplines.

  I seemed to be able to invent things before I reached Innovator (7) proficiency, like the semi automatic crossbow, but it wasn't nearly as revolutionary as a gun or gun powder would be.

  When I confirmed my blacksmithing proficiency choice, my wheels in my head started turning. I could feel the gun and gunpowder inventions at the tip of my fingers. It was just a matter of time to connect the dots.

  Then the system informed me of the new ability I gained.

  Synthesize: Create something that requires a lengthy process instantly, if you have the right materials and conditions.

  "What are you doing?" Patriculus said. "You're falling behind." He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me along.

  This was going too far, but I would endure it for Valda. Man, I'm going to be so happy when I get payback for this, I thought. I walked with Cul until we all came to a junction in the cave. There were three tunnels branching off the room we had just entered.

  In the short time it took to reach this point, I had already figured out the components necessary to create gunpowder, and how I was going to do it. I realized the components were right at my fingertips. I just had to go a little farther.

  Gunpowder was made by combining saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur at specific ratios, grinding it up and mixing it. I already had the saltpeter. And I had already smelled hydrogen sulfide in this cave, which meant sulfur was nearby.

  Sulfur itself was odorless. Hydrogen sulfide was not. And then all I needed was charcoal, which I could make in a pit in the ground using Synthesize to speed up the process. I had wood on me. It was a basic crafting material and I could carry infinite volume and weight. Why wouldn't I have wood?

  Charcoal was made by burning wood in a low oxygen environment, which could be achieved by putting it in a hole in the ground and covering it up.

  Why was I stressing the smell of hydrogen sulfide? Because it would allow me to tell which tunnel to go down to get to the sulfur. The smell was strongest from the right tunnel.

  "I think we should go down the right tunnel," I said.

  "Why would we do that?" Riley asked. "That place stinks."

  "Exactly," I said. "It stinks because there's sulfur nearby. Sulfur is good for alchemy. I don't know about you, but I'm here for loot and sulfur is as good as any gold you're going to find down here. You can sell it to alchemists for a lot of money."

  "Yeah, but how would we transport it?" Riley said.

  I held up an infinity bag. "A bag, of course," I said. "How else would you transport it?"

  "You're going to transport loads of sulfur in that bag?" she said. "That thing could barely hold a few pounds. You better hope there's not much of it."

  "This bag can hold infinite weight," I said. "Size and weight don't matter."

  "That's an infinity bag?" she said. "Give it here."

  "I'm sorry," I said. "but we don't know each other well. You might try to keep it."

  "Of course I was going to try to keep it!" she said. "It's an infinity bag!"

  "I'm sorry, but I don't give these away," I said.

  "Bullshit," she said. "I saw you give a bag that looked just like that to that kooky wizard in his little shop."

  They had been watching us since that far back? So, the meeting in the park between Valda and Cul wasn't an accident. They engineered this whole situation from the beginning. They must have seen us buy things from expensive stores and realized we had money.

  Or maybe they just watched us go to the most expensive inn in town and figured it out that way. Either way, they weren't just going to trap us with the spider queen. They were going to rob and murder us.

  I had to pretend I didn't see the trap closing in or they'd spring it before I could get the sulfur and make the gunpowder.

  I knew I could make a gun. That's the other invention I figured out when I took the recent level in blacksmithing. I could make it with steel, but using the shapeshifting rock would be faster. That was my plan. Right now, I just needed gunpowder.

  I'd use the hand crossbows, but they were all wearing armor that would stop the bolts, except for the rogue, and he'd probably dodge them. No, I needed something stronger, and the arbalest wouldn't cut it because it took 5 seconds to reload. I'd be dead in 5 seconds.

  There were too many of them, and they were too high level. I needed a gun. Without it, we were toast. So I did my best to make it seem like that revelation sailed right over my head. Out of curiosity, I looked at Valda. She was still relaxed, like nothing was happening.

  "That was an exchange of equal value," I said. "I doubt you have anything to offer that would equal the value of this bag."

  "I bet you're wrong," she said. "What is that thing worth? Like 20 gold?"

  "Try 500 gold," I said.

  All of their jaws dropped except Valda. She already knew that.

  "500 gold?" They all said at the same time.

  "Screw it," Bartok said. "I say we do it now. We don't need to wait until the boss if they're carrying that much on 'em."

  "I agree," Cul said. He pulled out his sword. "Give us all your stuff and we'll let you go."

  Damn it. Now I'd have to improvise. I ran over to Valda like I was scared and hugged her. "Valda! Protect me!" Then I whispered in her ear. "Start slowly walking backwards towards the smelly tunnel. I have a plan."

  "Ok," Valda said.

  Her happy and relaxed face hardened. She started backing up towards the tunnel, and I did the same while pretending to hide behind her. At the same time, I pulled out my largest infinity bag I owned. I usually kept it rolled up in a pocket because it was too big to wear on my body.

  "Guys, we don't have to do it this way," Valda said. "If you fight us, you'll lose at least two of you. Is that a consequence you're willing to live with?"

  "Yeah, right," Bartok said. "I'd like to see you try."

  They slowly walked towards us with wicked smiles on their faces. They weren't in a rush because they thought they had us cornered. Which, to a certain extent, they did, but they didn't know something I knew. That I have too much stuff. I grabbed Valda and pulled her behind me.

  "If you want our stuff, here it is!"

  I turned over the bag and began to empty out the large bag. In a matter of seconds, the tunnel entrance was covered and blocked by a massive pile of crafting supplies. Wood and metal were stacked nearly to the ceiling.

  I stood on part of the pile to get the height to dump more out and completely close off the tunnel. Then I dumped more out for good measure until the tunnel was blocked with a pile of junk that was five feet thick.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and let the anxiety leave my body, until a sharp point pressed against my back. I realized who it was. Roger, the rogue. He had sneaked into the tunnel behind us with his dumb sneaky rogue skills.