He also hated himself—for his weakness, for being unable to let ordinary words, as they seemed, pass by his ears and consciousness. For the fact they wounded him so deeply, though he understood perfectly well—Zhalgaztur was right. Perhaps the entire reason lay precisely in the truth of those words.
As usually happens, consulting his mind, he easily found justification for not opening the chest right now. His brain helpfully tossed up a dozen reasons why he should wait, why he needed first to collect his thoughts, calm down, prepare himself mentally. Having negotiated with his own conscience and concluded a temporary truce with it, he lowered himself straight onto the cave's stone floor, crossing his legs in the familiar pose, and began attempting to meditate.
At first thoughts darted about like frightened birds, refusing to settle. The image of the chest, the baksy's words, his own fears—all this whirled in his head in chaotic vortex. But with difficulty, through effort of will, he nevertheless managed to force himself into that familiar sensation of complete oblivion. Into that state where there existed neither past nor future, neither body nor pain—only emptiness and silence.
The darkness, familiar to him since infancy, gladly received him into its embrace, like an old friend who'd missed an infrequent guest. In this void he could simply be, without thinking, without feeling, without experiencing. How long he sat in this state, Ayan didn't know. Time lost all meaning, dissolving in the infinity of meditative trance.
The lad came to only when his body, numb from long immobility, began toppling sideways. Reality returned sharply, almost painfully. Ayan winced, feeling pins and needles in his stiff limbs.
Having stretched, struggling to unbend his stiff legs, driving blood through his veins with light pats on thighs and calves, he rose to his feet and, checking the clock in his internal interface, realised that before Zhalgaztur's arrival he had too much time left. More than he'd calculated.
With an already familiar gesture Ayan summoned the characteristics window and, barely glancing at the numbers, grunted with satisfaction—Concentration and Spirit had grown by exactly one point each. Meditation had once again borne fruit. Closing the interface with mere mental effort, he again turned his gaze to the ill-fated chest standing in the cave's corner, like a silent reproach to his indecisiveness.
And it began. Again. Another round of internal argument with himself, where the roles of prosecutor and defender were played by one and the same person.
"What's he going to do to me in the end?" Ayan mentally snapped, staring at the chest defiantly. "Kill me, perhaps?"
But barely had this phrase flickered through his consciousness when memory helpfully supplied the image of the last training session. That very one, when the pain had been so unbearable he'd begged for death as the only possible release. Begged—and received not even that mercy. Ayan's entire body shuddered from the memory alone.
He clearly realised that Zhalgaztur had means to respond to him for ignoring a direct order. And these methods would be far more sophisticated than simply death. Sighing heavily and resignedly, like a condemned man walking to the scaffold, he nevertheless approached the chest. With difficulty, overcoming internal resistance, he pressed his palm to the cold wooden lid.
Nothing followed. No flash of light, no system window, no characteristic sound of receiving an item.
"Don't understand," Ayan muttered aloud, frowning. "Where's the contents window?"
The lad jerked his hand back, perplexedly rubbed his chin and sank into thought. He'd neither heard nor read about such a bug. Usually the system instantly showed what was in loot or an item the moment you touched it.
"Perhaps this is connected to Ilira's latest quest?" he supposed, summoning the quest window and rereading the description in search of a clue.
Though in the quest text nothing was said about chest contents or loot no longer appearing in the usual system window. No caveats, no changes in mechanics.
Ayan intuitively, on the level of inner sense, guessed the nature of what had just happened to him. He still had to discover many more innovations Ilira had introduced into the game.
Having examined the chest more carefully and thoroughly, the lad discovered no familiar padlocks, keyholes or even hint of an opening mechanism on the visible front section. He walked round it, squatted down, looked underneath—nothing.
The side panels were perfectly smooth, without a single crack or protrusion. That the chest opened from the side of the narrow legs on which it stood securely, Ayan strongly doubted—that would simply be absurd from the standpoint of common sense.
Straightening and rubbing his stiff lower back, he decided to act as straightforwardly as possible. After all, Zhalgaztur had already confirmed that the chest belonged to him. Therefore, it should open.
In the end Ayan simply grasped what he assumed was the lid with both hands, firmly clasping its edges with his fingers, and began lifting it upwards with all available force, preparing to apply serious effort. He didn't even manage to properly tense his back and arm muscles when right before his eyes surfaced semi-transparent text: "Identity confirmed."
Following this came a quiet, barely audible click, as though something inside the mechanism had gently released an invisible catch, and the lid unexpectedly easily, almost weightlessly yielded to his efforts, swinging open without a single creak.
The chest's contents proved completely unfamiliar and unexpected for the lad, though, to be honest, this was generally the first game chest he'd seen with his own digital eyes in his entire life.
The internal space was neatly divided into several separate sections by thin plates of that same dark material with a slight turquoise tinge from which the chest itself was skilfully made. In each of these geometrically correct cells rested various small objects.
They looked like skilfully crafted figurines seemingly made from some dense metal. Or perhaps more accurately, they should be called detailed miniature models—yes, that was probably the more correct and precise formulation of what the lad saw.
Becoming interested and unable to restrain natural curiosity, Ayan cautiously reached his hand inside the chest and carefully lifted the largest and most massive of all the models lying there, trying not to disturb the rest. Bringing the find closer to his face for more detailed examination and turning it before his eyes, he almost immediately saw system text appear with the item's description.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
"Full Cuirass of the Ether Knight"
Personal
Unranked
Chest
Plate
Armour: 18
+1 to Stamina
Durability: 100/100
Required level: 0
Scalable
Indestructible
Not for sale
Part of set "Full Armour of the Ether Knight"
Set bonus
Wearing more items from this set will grant bonuses to your character.
-
3 pieces: Increases critical strike chance of "Etheric Burst", "Strike of the Ether Follower" and "Verdict of Ether" abilities by 5%.
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6 pieces: Damage dealt by "Etheric Burst", "Strike of the Ether Follower" and "Verdict of Ether" abilities increased by 10%. Increases critical strike chance of "Etheric Burst", "Strike of the Ether Follower" and "Verdict of Ether" abilities by 10%.
-
9 pieces: Reduces damage taken by 20% and increases incoming healing. Damage dealt by "Etheric Burst", "Strike of the Ether Follower" and "Verdict of Ether" abilities increased by 20%. Increases critical strike chance of "Etheric Burst", "Strike of the Ether Follower" and "Verdict of Ether" abilities by 20%.
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12 pieces: With each kill, restores 10% of your maximum health, mana and vior reserves to members of your group or raid within 40 metres of you. Reduces damage taken by 30% and increases incoming healing. Damage dealt by "Etheric Burst", "Strike of the Ether Follower" and "Verdict of Ether" abilities increased by 30%. Increases critical strike chance of "Etheric Burst", "Strike of the Ether Follower" and "Verdict of Ether" abilities by 30%.
"This armour was forged in a single, unique copy specially for the Chosen of Ether! Rejoice in this gift of fate—the higher powers observe your deeds and favour you at every step of your path."
The lad's jaw literally struck the stone floor. Such a gift from the Heavens he definitely hadn't expected to see. The object lying in his hands represented something absolutely unimaginable, going far beyond any reasonable understanding of game mechanics.
Such items—so powerful they completely shattered the fragile balance of the game world—shouldn't exist at all. This contradicted everything he knew about the Ether in general, and Seratis in particular.
But not only did the cuirass alone already represent phenomenal value—in the massive chest lay an absolutely complete set of armour. Ayan methodically began extracting models one item after another: a skilfully forged helmet with eye slits in the visor, a gorget to protect the neck, massive pauldrons, vambraces, flexible gauntlets composed of the finest metal plates, a heavy fauld, greaves, sturdy sabatons, a thick multi-layered gambeson, a mail hauberk tinkling with small rings and, finally, a long blue cloak.
In total there were exactly twelve pieces of equipment, and donning each of them, Ayan would transform into a veritable walking mountain of metal—into a practically invulnerable fortress on legs. The lad was in no hurry to try himself in this role.
Instead, he returned everything to its place and tried to forget what he'd seen.
Continuing the detailed examination of the next section of the extensive storage, Ayan carefully lifted in his hands a flat disc about twenty centimetres in diameter. The artefact's surface proved completely covered with bizarre symbols and intricate signs which evoked absolutely no associations in his memory.
The lad turned the find between his palms, trying to discern at least some hint of familiar script or patterns, but unsuccessfully. Even the material itself from which this mysterious disc was made proved completely unfamiliar to him—something between tarnished bronze and polished stone, with a light mother-of-pearl sheen.
Having turned the artefact for some more time and examined it from all possible sides, Ayan decided not to rack his brain over insoluble riddles and simply use the most obvious method of obtaining information—read the system description of the item.
Reading the system description took only a few moments, but each line of words highlighting before his eyes made Ayan increasingly amazed at the incredible value of the find he now held in his hands.
"Seal of the Primordials' Storage"
Personal
Unranked
Durability: 1/1
Required level: 0
Indestructible
Not for sale
"In times of immemorial past, when the world of Seratis was only just beginning its existence and taking its very first tentative steps along the path of development, mysterious and mighty Creators—entities who stood at the origins of this reality's formation—generously gifted their very first, original children with blessings incredible in their power. These gifts were transmitted through the imposition of special seals directly upon the souls of chosen beings. In your hands lies one of these most ancient relics, preserved from those long-forgotten times.
The Seal of the Primordials' Storage creates a unique spatial dimension—a pocket which establishes a direct and unbreakable connection directly with your soul, becoming its integral part. This personal repository allows you to place inside and freely transport a completely unlimited quantity of the most varied material objects of any size and weight, whilst completely halting in them absolutely all natural processes—be it organic decomposition, cooling of hot objects or any other physical changes.
Both the placement of needed items inside the spatial pocket and their subsequent extraction back into the material world is accomplished exclusively through expenditure of your personal mana reserves, the quantity of which determines the speed and ease of manipulations with the storage.
Final binding of the artefact to the owner is automatically activated immediately after complete reading of this system description."
The instantaneous reaction and almost reflexive attempt to forcefully cast the seal away from himself brought Ayan absolutely no result and in no way helped avoid what was happening. The metal from which the seal was skilfully made seemed in one instant to lose all its hardness, as though suddenly melting under the influence of invisible heat and began penetrating directly through the skin of both his palms, with which he'd firmly gripped the disc just seconds before.
Despite all the incredible absurdity and outright surrealism of the process happening to him, which by all laws of common sense should have caused at least some discomfort, the lad experienced absolutely no negative or painful sensations—only a strange, barely perceptible tingling which quickly disappeared without trace.
The only visible change he could register after completion of the artefact's merger with his body or soul consisted in the fact that in his familiar internal interface, displaying all game parameters and capabilities, appeared a completely new, previously absent icon, visually exactly repeating the form and patterns of that very metal disc.
Giving a brief mental command to press it, Ayan expanded the disc and with some surprise discovered before his inner vision a neat grid of regular form which, as became clear upon more detailed study of capabilities, could be freely stretched in all directions, like an infinite elastic canvas having no visible borders or expansion limits.
And so there occurred again precisely what he'd so stubbornly and diligently tried to avoid: Ayan once more received something genuinely valuable and rare, which gave him a completely undeniable and significant advantage over the overwhelming majority of other players in the Ether. Even completely abstracting from all his numerous unique Legacies and powerful combat abilities, merely the successful binding to such a rare spatial pocket already seemed to him flagrantly unfair and overtly imbalanced in relation to the other participants in the gaming process.
Meanwhile, inside the chest still lay, patiently awaiting their hour, several other items and packages of various size and form not yet studied by him. Ayan with a somewhat gloomy, almost resigned expression on his face cast short glances into the depths of this storehouse of artefacts, already anticipating that there too would undoubtedly be found something equally valuable and rare, which would only aggravate his already ambiguous position as possessor of too many advantages.
The lad understood: each new find, each additional unique item would only further distance him from the other players, transforming him into something like a walking anomaly. This realisation brought him no particular joy—rather the opposite, it bred a vague but persistent feeling of awkwardness, as though he was receiving undeserved gifts which by rights should have gone to someone else, more worthy or more in need of such help.
"Pull yourself together, you weakling! You'll pity yourself later, half the work's not finished yet!"