I make sure that everyone else has enough food, especially Kirito, and then I leave. I head downstairs to the hotel’s restaurant and find Amn waiting alone at a table for me. The other rulers are there, at another table, eating breakfast, so I join Amn at his table.

  “What’s up?”

  Emperor Amn says “I wanted to talk to you about us maybe taking an extra day here to rest up.”

  “Yeah, that’s fine. To be honest, I was expecting it.”

  Emperor Amn says “Really? That easy? I thought for sure now that we are close you would be in a rush to arrive.”

  “I do want this over with so I can get to other important stuff. I also know that we have been on the road for a while and you guys don’t have a nice comfortable cabin like I do. So, yeah, I am fine with giving everyone a day of rest.”

  Emperor Amn says “Alright, great! So, do you want to join me for breakfast? This place has some really good food.”

  “The others have probably already finished eating, so why not?”

  After I agree, Amn orders the entire breakfast menu, much to the waiter’s surprise. Amn was right, the food is really good and there are a few dishes I haven’t had before. I make sure to add them to the pouch, which reminds me that I still need to try making a new one.

  However, that is going to have to wait, after breakfast I grab Sero, Kreno, and the kids. Mulan and Asuna switch to their human forms and I carry Kirito in my arms. Then we all head outside and start walking around the city visiting any shop that catches our eyes.

  Of course, that means that we are mostly stopping at clothing stores, but I don’t mind. I buy some clothes for all of the girls and try to keep Kirito distracted while they are shopping. Aside from clothes, we hit a lot of the street vendors because they smell so good.

  It is totally not healthy, but it has its own deliciousness due to that and we all enjoy it. Not that it really matters, we all have constitutions that are far better than a normal human. None of us are likely to get fat from eating junk food, even if it is all deep fried.

  With as much street food as we have eaten, we don’t need to stop anywhere for lunch. We only return to the hotel when it is getting close to time for us to eat dinner. Kirito has napped and woken up several times throughout the day, but he is awake when we return.

  However, thanks to all the snacking, no one is actually hungry enough for dinner yet. So, I shapeshift, shrink, and start a game of tag with Kirito, Asuna, and Mulan. Sero and Kreno sit safely off to the side and just watch the mayhem that ensues.

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  We make a mess of the suite with our game, but luckily we manage to avoid breaking anything. The cleaning staff probably isn’t going to be too happy with us, but I will leave a big tip. All in all, it was a good day and everyone seems to have had a lot of fun.

  By the time we are done with our game, the kids at least have worked up an appetite, so we have dinner. We play a bit more after dinner, but eventually the kids get worn out and head to bed. Once they are gone I take Sero and Kreno to bed and we have our fun before I open the soulscapes.

  After the soulscapes, I enter meditation and start working on my core integration again. I am really curious to see what is going to happen, so I am putting other things off for now. I will go back to working on other things once I have seen what happens when my core is integrated.

  Core Integration Progress: 47%

  When Sero and Kreno wake up, I join them for some fun before breakfast and then we join the kids. Once we are done eating, I leave a fistfull of gold on the table before we head downstairs. The servants already have everything ready and we are just waiting for a few of the rulers.

  I am aware that Mulan snuck out the past two nights to go hunting with Lizzy. However, she technically had permission and Lizzy was willing, so I haven’t said anything. One good thing about stopping for an extra day is that Lizzy was able to catch up on her sleep.

  She is eager to get moving, I can tell by the way she keeps shifting her body and looking around. Luckily, the rulers don’t keep us waiting for too long and we are soon back on the road. Once we are moving, Asuna plays with Kirito and Mulan starts experimenting with the essences again.

  I keep an eye on what Mulan is doing with the essences, but I also start crafting new pouches. A small one to replace mine and a large one for Everburn, I make them out of dragon hide. Once the hide part is done, I add scales to the outside, but I convert most of the mass to capacity.

  That leaves the scales as a really thin, but extremely durable outer coating for the pouches. With my attention split to keep an eye on what Mulan is doing, crafting them takes until lunch. Mulan is trying out several interesting ideas, but none of them really work out.

  I am glad to see that she doesn’t allow the repeated failures to stop her from keeping at it. When the caravan stops for lunch, I sit and talk to Mulan about the things she was trying. We talk all through lunch and continue talking once the caravan is back on the road.

  After we finally run out of things to talk about, Mulan joins Asuna and I cuddle with Sero and Kreno. While we are cuddling, they inform me that they will be leaving tomorrow. Surprisingly, Mulan doesn’t object or complain when I tell her she will be leaving with them.

  Asuna says “Do I need to go as well? I think Kirito would be okay without you for a couple of days, maybe.”

  “No. You are staying to help with Kirito and to protect him. Lizzy will be protecting you. I’d let Mulan stay, but that would make it harder for Lizzy to keep you safe.”

  Mulan says “It’s okay, dad. I understand. I would like to rejoin you after things are settled in the Magic Kingdom, if that’s okay?”

  “It will depend on what happens, but if it is not too dangerous, then you can rejoin us. Just know that you may be told to stay on the war wagon and act as support fire. If the Magic Kingdom issue is solved easily, my next task is wiping out a clan of giants in the mountains.”

  Mulan says “I would be fine with that. In the meantime, do you think you could make a magic item that can accurately measure the energy contained in an essence?”

  “Um, maybe. Why?”

  Mulan says “I want to know if feeding a bunch of essences gives the same energy to something as feeding the essences to each other and then feeding it to the dragon’s essence.”