The next few floors progressed not as quickly as the second and third. In fact, no group would go for the floors without Kirito's group. So they took their time, harvested as much as possible out of the dungeons and they worked on upgrading their gear. Silica stuck to the group, and she managed to catch up to their levels. At floor ten, the whole party was at the lowest level forty four. Silica was the lowest level in the party, however she and Kirito were also accompanied by the excessively rare pets, the feathery dragons. They in fact had found them a few days after meeting in the same forest they met when they were harvesting more materials for Kirito's wood crafting and the bird creatures had been replaced. Both had luck on their side, and they both had the blessing of a small feathery dragon who rode on their shoulders.

"Mine is Pina, and Kirito's is Kiin. Aren't they wonderful?"

Pina and Kiin happily cried from their perches on their shoulders. Silica was talking to a new friend she met on the floor who was around her age. Apparently they knew each other outside of the game as well.

"Your pets are really cute. Kiin has slightly purple feathers...maybe it's because Kirito-san's appearance is always wearing dark outfits?"

Kirito retorted that comment about his appearance.

"Even black has its limits...why are all the best gear types initially black?! It makes me want to start investing in the alchemy skill...but I'm already way too busy with growing Kiin, wood crafting, leather working, tailoring, cooking and ingredient mixing...plus we all do so much work for levelling. Even Lisbeth has a hard time keeping up. Maybe Leafa or Sinon or Asuna should pick up a bonus skill besides cooking and do alchemy so we can colour our gear. I normally wear black a lot of the time out of the game, but now I feel like I'll be ready to throw all those clothes out when we get out of the game."

Leafa and Sinon seemed to be pleased with such suggestion. Especially since the black clothing lent to his hair length as if it reached all the way to the ground instead of to his knees currently...

Nobody offered to go into alchemy though.

"Kirito is already doing so many, what does it hurt to do alchemy and think of it like the ingredient mixing?"

Silica's new friend was just full of things to make him a little upset. Kirito was getting tired of giving reasons to everything, so he summoned the alchemy skill and creation menu, and showed her just how much was ahead of him in alchemy alone.

"Alchemy is not simple mixing of ingredients. Alchemy is almost as much work as wood crafting, leather working and tailoring all at the same time. First, there's learning everything by testing each ingredient several times, then seeing two effects work together a lot of the time, the result of combining two items is useless. Alchemy takes it even further and adds in the cauldron item for mixing where you have to clean it after every mixture unless you want to end up mixing hundreds of items."

After he explained how deep alchemy was, nobody was interested in it at all. Rather, they were afraid of it. At least they understood why he wasn't investing time in it. At least, that was how they assumed it was when he mentioned it.

"I can't believe I already invested levelling it to twenty..."

Everyone looked at him with a strange array of expressions. Surprise, shock, admiration...pity. Silica's friend was of the pity type of expression.

"Kirito-san is so diligent."

After she said it, he sighed, knowing how she meant those words.

"So, I'm sorry I'm too afraid to join your friends in the higher floors. Please be careful when you all go and come back safe."

She was very kind, but she was afraid of leaving the safe areas. After the announcement in the Town of Beginnings, she hadn't left the safe areas once. She was sticking to the town areas, and sometimes talked to the more kind and less intimidating people. There was a very nervous person, and she hoped to play without fear when she first logged into the game.

Kirito and the rest of the group headed out, bidding Silica's friend farewell for the day and headed to the dungeon area they had found on the tenth floor. They would still only be working for levels and wait for other groups who were aiming to help with the climbing of the floors. It was already warned by Kirito's group widely that the difficulty jumps a massive amount as of floor ten. There were some groups who unfortunately didn't take the information seriously, or they underestimated the difficulty. There were already many people who fell to the dungeon monsters of floor ten. It was tragic, depressing, and frustrating that people wouldn't heed the warnings. Kirito was especially hurt that those people would take such risks and lose their lives because of those risks. Argo had become popular because of how much she was talked to in reference to the guidance of Kirito's group. The people who actually listened to her and successfully journeyed to the dungeons in a way that they could reliably level without reaching too far managed to come back safely and they were aiming to join the raid that Kirito's group was planning.

The raid party of the past were unfortunate victims of reaching too far. Kirito and the rest of the group had taken a particularly long break from floor clearing to warn off people from making the same mistake and making the time in Aincrad even more tragic. They had to try and return as many people back to the world outside of the game as possible, and that meant they had to work hard together.

On the way to the dungeon through the field, Kirito's group noticed a group of similar size who were much too low level for grinding even the field monsters. Just as a girl wielding sword and shield was about to take a fatal strike, none of the rest of her group ready to save her, Kirito charged in with sonic leap. He barely made it in time before the strike landed.

"Thank...thank goodness you're okay. You all really need to do your levelling in lower floors. This is far too dangerous."

The group stared at Kirito and turned away besides the girl with short cropped black hair. She had dark blue eyes and a beauty mark under her right eye. She was incredibly nervous, but she was trying her best to face him despite the rest of the group looking away.

"Th-thank you...for helping."

Kirito used a hi-potion on her and wouldn't leave them alone until they started heading back to the town.

The area was mostly rolling fields with plenty of boar monsters again, much higher level with some having different pelt colour, and much more of the minotaur type mob running around. Although the field had so many of the minotaur and boar type monsters, it was the same in the beta, and the dungeon instead had lizard type monsters and a wyvern type boss.

"If you want help levelling in a difficult area, we'd be happy to help, but not where it's too high a level for your group. Today we're just doing some levelling ourselves so it might be fine to help you out instead of focusing on our own levels. Everyone has to grow strong if we're aiming to clear the game together right?"

The average level for the other group was about...twenty five. That was something that might have been normal to have as a level in the beta at floor ten, but it was far too low currently. Apparently the girl of the group was the type who would rather stay in the towns. She was terrified whenever she saw a monster's gaze turn on her, even if they were passive.

"No thanks...you're that group who's been clearing all of the floors. It'd just be a waste of your precious time."

The apparent leader of the group wasn't the girl, but a guy who seemed he would otherwise be kind and reaching out for any help they could get. The boys of the group were unhappy at being helped by Kirito. Maybe it was because Kirito looked so feminine and outside of the group, he was considered a girl outright.

"Didn't you listen to me? I said we all have to work together. As of this boss, it's too much of a risk to approach a floor boss without a full raid party. That's why we've also been helping other groups. So that it's possible to meet the challenge instead of going unprepared. Heck, we wouldn't mind making sure other groups are as prepared as us to go in against a floor boss and start clearing the floors without us. As long as it's being done, and we're contributing to it somehow. I can contribute with my crafting and other non battle skills, just like everyone else in this group. Other people can go ahead and do their best fighting monsters, but please do so carefully."

After Kirito finished, the group left, but the girl paused and turned around with the intent to say something on her face.

"Please help us in the future again if you see us having trouble. Thank you again for saving me."

Kirito smiled and waved to her. He used his investigate skill he had invested some time into and noticed that they had formed an actual guild, called the Moonlight Black Cats. The girl of the group was called Sachi. She was extremely timid, but it seemed her group was intent on having her be the tank role. It was the worst place to put someone with her personality. He wanted to do something, to make them reconsider how they treated her if they considered her a friend of theirs, but they were back in the town already.

"Hey...how about after we finish our levelling today, we go to the Town of Beginnings and register as a guild?"

After he said those words, Kirito turned and saw that the others were waiting for him to finally suggest it.

"If Kirito wouldn't suggest it soon, I would have."

Sinon was a little forceful about it, but she was happy that he finally made up his mind about them being a proper guild. Instead of them continuing to just be called the beta group or the group led by the famous black haired swordswoman, they would have a proper name for people to know them by.

"Kirito in the game has made me realize that what happened in the past was...terrible, but we are still alive, and we need to treat it precious. We can't risk and force ourselves, because it's much better to be safe and cautious about how we proceed from now. Kirito also seems to be much more protective of everyone because of what happened. Probably the one manly thing about him. Especially with being made a girl in Aincrad..."

Sinon was very sentimental, but because she wasn't good with serious moods, she threw in a joke at the end about Kirito's situation because of the calibration.

Kirito complained about the joke, but he smiled and they went on into the dungeon. She was right. He was much more concerned about other people. He didn't want anyone else to die so long as he had the chance to effect the survival of people trapped in the death game Sword Art Online had become.