Thomas looked at the notification asking him to name the new goggles for a bit. He wanted to give them an interesting name so he didn't rush like he usually would. After thinking for a minute, he said, "Ultrasonic Goggles."

System Notice: You have created a Rare rarity Ultrasonic Goggles. Quality: Excellent. You have gained 959 Magitech Engineering experience. You have gained 959 experience. Armor Type: Ultrasonic Goggles Rarity: Rare Quality: Excellent Description: While being worn with mana channeled into the enchantment, these goggles will give a visual representation of Ultrasonic Soundwaves. The more sources of sound the clearer the image will become.

After reading over the description, Thomas was sure he'd gotten what he was aiming for but it mentioned nothing about being part of a set. Maybe he just didn't meet the requirements or something. He had no idea, but it seemed like the goggles would work. He slipped them on and lifted his hand. Low clicking sounds emanated from him as he cast a familiar spell using his newfound Sound Magic. The goggles had no reaction to the sound until he began to channel mana into them. Channeling mana in two directions gave him a slight headache still but it was nowhere near as bad as it had previously been.

As the soundwaves bounced off of the walls, an image began to appear on the lenses of the goggles. It was a confusing jumble of lines in black and white that was damned near impossible to understand. He persisted though and eventually, he started to make sense of the information. He could see everything around him, like before. Only this time there was significantly more information that took a while for him to translate into useful information. Unlike his own mind, the goggles could easily take in and translate the information it was receiving. Once he got the hang of reading the information being displayed he came to understand and found it to be rather informative. For example...

He turned and faced one of the walls of the dungeon and slowly approached it. The soundwaves bouncing off of it were showing an odd irregularity about the wall as if there was a void within it. He looked all around but couldn't find any sort of switch or pressure plate to open the void. He was hoping it might be some sort of hidden treasure or something else just as interesting. Not willing to give up, he stopped casting the Sound Magic and using the goggles. After sliding them up on his head to get them out of the way he conjured a pickaxe made of Metal Magic and started trying to dig into the wall. The first blow against the wall sent violent tremors down his arms. The dungeon walls were no joke!

He fixed his grip on the pickaxe and slammed it into the wall once again. With a thunderous clang, the pickaxe bounced off and barely scratched the wall of the dungeon. With a grimace, he dismissed the pickaxe and shook his arms. Just two solid blows against the wall and they already felt numb. There was no way in hell he would be able to dig into the wall to find out what was inside of that void he saw. If there was even anything inside, to begin with. If there was a hidden treasure then brute force was most likely the wrong way to go about it. He glanced at the large Firestone Gem for a moment before dismissing that though. Though the power of the Firestone Gem was great he didn't want to risk something bad happening by getting ahead of himself and using it to blow a hole in the wall.

He left the room he'd been working in and entered the room next to it, on the other side of the wall. The Trolls he'd mutilated with the claymore mines previously hadn't respawned yet so the room was still empty. Once the goggles were back over his eyes with mana flowing through them, he used his Sound Magic to generate Ultrasonic clicks. It didn't take long to find the void in the wall once again. He searched along the wall until his hand brushed over a small indentation. Looking at it more closely he could see a very well hidden button within. Not wasting any time, he pressed it. With a nearly silent click that was felt more than heard, a section of the wall popped open a couple of inches.

Thomas stopped what he was doing and backed away from the opening in the wall quickly. If it was a treasure chamber then the odds were that it was also boobytrapped. Hell, that's what he would do, and it would be a nasty one as well. Once he was on the opposite side of the room and far to the side of the opening for the secret door, he conjured up some Metal Magic. He created a long thing string of steel and latched it onto the door so he could pull it open from far away. He should be safe from any trap that didn't cover the entire room... probably. He gently tugged on the metal wire to slowly open the door.

For a door made of solid dungeon stone, it opened rather easily and smoothly. It had to be very well balanced to do so. As the door opened fully, nothing happened. He waited for a few moments and still, nothing happened. That being the case he moved closer and peeked around the open door into the room. It was completely empty. Nothing. He looked all around the room, even at the ceiling, but there was nothing to be found. Not even any signs that anything had been here previously. He closed the door in disappointment, "Pirates must've gotten here first."

He returned to his workshop room and saw three dark clouds slowly forming into the shape of Trolls. Without concern, he pulled out his Spell Cannon and waited. As the Trolls finished forming he put a fire arrow through each of their heads and collected the crystals they dropped. He would never, ever, say no to more mana crystals to work with. With that group taken care of, he really needed to get back to work after wasting his time on that fruitless treasure hunt. So disappointing.

He sat back down in front of his supplies. Now he needed to waste no more time on his curiosity and get to work making items to go along with his new goggles. The items would be extremely simple and didn't need to be very high quality. Some regular Troll mana crystals were ground to powder while others were reshaped into spheres without being purified. They wouldn't be able to hold much mana, but after some consideration, it seemed like a better idea than leaving other stuff behind. The items wouldn't last as long or be as powerful but considering the alternative of leaving behind purified mana crystals, it seemed like a better option.

Once he had a few dozen of the Troll mana crystals reshaped into perfect spheres, he began to cover them in a solid, if thin, layer of steel. This would protect the fragile crystals from harm while they were rolling around on the stone floors or maybe even bouncing off of the walls. Once the mana crystal spheres were all coated in enough iron to protect them it was just a matter of getting down to the enchantment. Unlike the goggles, the enchantment for the little metal balls was pretty simple. It just needed to emit ultrasonic soundwaves once a second until it ran out of mana. The ground-up Troll crystals were used as the enchantment medium. None of the materials used in these disposable items was worth salvaging.

System Notice: Please name your creation.

Thomas snickered a little as he said, "Sound Balls."

System Notice: You have created a Magic rarity Sound Balls. Quality: Excellent. You have gained 475 Magitech Engineering experience. Item Type: Sound Balls Rarity: Magic Quality: Excellent Description: When charged with mana a Sound Balls will emit ultrasonic soundwaves until it runs out of mana.

After reading the messages, Thomas sighed. His silly joke came off completely wrong when reading it in the notices. A single ball couldn't be called 'balls' without sounding weird. He should have just called it a 'Sound Ball' instead. He grumbled to himself about the mistake for a moment before putting it out of his mind. He looked at the small iron ball in his hand and started to channel mana into it. Despite the size of the Troll mana crystals, the ball could only contain roughly two percent of his total mana pool. In total, he could only charge about fifty of them before he ran out of mana. He was only making about thirty so that wasn't an issue. As his mana charged the 'Sound Balls', it began to emit continuous near-silent clicking sounds.

He rolled the ball across the room and could no longer hear any sound coming from it. He smiled at that. Though the ball was a little conspicuous it didn't seem threatening and locating it by sound would be near impossible without being right next to it. He let the ball continue to click while he pulled down the Ultrasonic Goggles and channeled mana into them. Immediately they started to display information coming in from the ball clicking away near the other side of the room. Through the interaction of the goggles and the ball, he could gather information on the room. So far, so good.

He walked away from the ball but as long as the soundwaves could reach him he could still see the room where the ball was located. After stepping into the hallway leading to the previous room the image began to become a little fuzzy, after fully entering the hallway the image vanished. He let out a long sigh. There was no wireless transmission in this world so sending the signal through walls was nearly impossible, for now. He didn't have time to come up with a more complex item design either. After returning to the room he was using as a workshop, he collected the still clicking sphere and placed it inside of his inventory. Maybe he could make the sound more powerful on the next one. A stronger enchantment would mean the 'Sound Balls' would run out of power faster but the sound might be able to bounce off of walls and travel further.

Keeping that in mind, he began inscribing the second metal sphere with an enchantment. It was essentially the same as before but this time he wanted it to produce a stronger soundwave. It might make it easier to detect but it would provide him with more information in exchange. The enchantment process was still very simple. When the new 'Sound Balls' was completed he didn't get a prompt to name it. The system seemed to know it was the same thing just slightly modified so it was named automatically. The game system could be so intuitive and yet so obtuse. It was odd but funny.

After charging the new 'Sound Balls' with mana, he rolled it across the room and repeated his testing process. The sound emitted from the new ball was definitely louder, but it still became impossible to hear from just a meter or two away. He walked out of the room with the goggles on and managed to get into the previous room before losing the image. It still wasn't perfect, but it was definitely a major improvement. Once he returned to the workshop he placed the ball next to him and let it continue to emit sound. He wanted to see how long it would last on a full charge. Simultaneously, he began to enchant more of the spheres. The more he had, the more area he could cover.

It took him several hours to enchant all of the spheres. During the process, he timed how long the first sphere took to run out of mana and was surprised that it lasted over an hour. The spell it used really was simple and didn't take all that much mana to use so it made a certain amount of sense. An hour should be more than enough time for him to find Snowlily and escape the pirates. If it took longer than that it would mean he was in some serious trouble. With all the 'Sound Balls' finished, he began charging them with mana before storing them inside of his inventory. Thanks to the time stop function they wouldn't work while inside. He could just retrieve them and toss them out as needed.

With those preparations completed, he checked his remaining time. He had less than fifteen hours until he needed to be out of the dungeon. That left him time for one or two more items to help with his escape. He now had something to help him map the tunnels of the cave system and boobytraps to lay behind him on his escape. He needed to think of a few more options that he could use. Multiple ideas came to him like a mana fueled jetpack to help propel his flight speed. Only, making something like that would take a lot more time and require a fair amount of practice to use. He also contemplated making something Snowlily could use but the goal was to find her and immediately escape, not fight their way out. There had to be something else he could make to assist him. He held his head in his hands as he looked down trying to think more.

Seeing his chest and legs it suddenly came to him. Armor. Not protective armor to keep him from taking damage. Way back when he first started playing AoG he'd made some leather armor to help with stealth. His skill had improved to levels unheard of back then. With his current power and knowledge, he could easily make stealth armor several grades above the simple garbage he made as a new player. With his decision made, he gathered the leather he had and began his work.