Chapter 82: Striking it Rich and an Unknown Crystal?!

Chapter 82: Chapter 82: Striking it Rich and an Unknown Crystal?!

The treasure chest’s lid rose fully as silver light spilled out, forcing everyone to shield their eyes for a moment.

When it faded, the chest sat packed edge to edge weapons, armor, crystals, potions, and several things nobody immediately recognized.

Kael’s eyes went wide. "...We’re rich."

"That’s your first thought, seriously?" Vex asked.

"Yes."

"Of course it is," Zalor sighed.

Rika started taking everything out methodically across then laying it on the floor.

Blood Mana Crystals ×300, mostly C Rank, with about thirty B Ranks mixed in, along with nearly 2000 C Rank Mana Crystals and 100 B Rank Mana Crystals.

Zalor whistled seeing the amount. "That alone’s worth more than some entire C-Rank runs."

20,000 Gold Coins.

"Damn! How much of that’s mine?" Kael asked immediately.

"However much is your share."

"That’s not a number."

"Calculate it yourself then, you oaf."

Lucien pulled the remaining items closer, a few one time use artifacts, some normal potions, and other things that he put to the side, before running Appraisal over each Rare item in turn for the party, telling them the results, though they would still have to get it appraised by a professional in the guild later on, as they would get more info from it than him.

[Bloodsteel Longsword — Rare]

[Bloodflow Conduction: mana circulates more freely through the blade.

Crimson Edge: cutting power increases when infused with mana.

Blood Tempering: hardens and sharpens temporarily when exposed to blood. Resistant to corrosion effects.]

"This one’s yours," he said, sliding it toward Rika as only she used Longswords within the group, well excluding that he could too, but her preferred his scyhtes.

She tested the weight and swung it once.

WHOOSH.

Her eyes widened slightly. "This is good, and the effects are better than my previous one."

Kael looked wounded. "You got a sword."

"Yes."

"I didn’t get one."

"You don’t use swords properly."

"I absolutely use swords properly!"

"You usually punch things, even though you have a greatsword." Vex pointed out.

Kael went quiet having no comebacks from that.

[Crimsonscale Battle Armor — Rare]

[Flexible light-medium armor from crimson scale reinforced with Bloodsteel thread. High physical defense, moderate corrosion resistance, temporary hardening when supplied mana.]

"This suits you," Lucien said, handing it to Zalor, whose current gear had taken the worst corrosive damage of anyone’s, as he had to hold back dozens in not more than a hundred smaller slimes.

Zalor examined it. "This is better than what I’m currently wearing."

"Congratulations," Kael said from the gold pile. "You finally own something that isn’t always black."

"It’s dark red."

"Same thing."

[Bloodveil Cloak — Rare]

[Mana concealment, reduced sound and presence while moving, resistance to magical detection, one daily use of Bloodveil to briefly obscure the wearer’s location.]

Vex took it without hesitation, draping it over his shoulders. He seemed to fade partway into the shadows immediately.

Zalor squinted at him. "...Seems like the effects are working, your presence has definitely decreased further than before."

"Then it’s mine."

Kael looked around, confused. "Where’d he go?"

Vex tapped his shoulder from directly behind him.

"AH!"

"What the hell man!?"

Everyone laughed.

[Crimson Impact Bracers — Rare]

[Designed for high-strength users. Increased impact force, reduced recoil, stores accumulated force from repeated strikes for a single Crimson Burst release. Has a 10% chance of afflicting Corrosion effect when releasing Crimson Burst.]

"These are quite good, especially the crimson burst and the corrosion effect, though I wonder how strong g the corrosion is?" Zalor said.

"Almost makes me want to take, what do you say Kael, you can have the cloak, it would help you sneaking into ceratin places?" Vex asked jokingly as he knowingly eyed Kael.

Kael though about the offer, before he stared at the gauntlets like they were a religious artifact and chose them over being sneaky, he put them on slowly, then punched his own palm.

BOOM.

The air actually cracked a bit.

"Oh," he said, grinning. "These baby’s are mine."

"Don’t test them in here, you moron, the structures aren’t stable." Rika said immediately.

He lowered his fists. "...Wasn’t going to."

Everyone stared at the nonsense he said.

"Okay, I was." He said blisjing as he looked away.

[Bloodmoon Healing Elixir ×3 — Rare]

[Rapidly repairs injury, restores mana, neutralizes moderate poison, clears most C-Rank and lower corrosive effects.]

"These are a emergency supply," Rika said, tucking one of them away and handing one each to Zalor and Lucien as nobody argued.

The remaining crafting materials, Bloodsteel Ore, Crimson Chitin, Bloodsilk Bundles, Condensed Blood, Bloodmother Membrane, everything split evenly among the five.

Then something small and unremarkable caught Lucien’s eye, a dark seed, barely worth noticing.

[Bloodrose Seed — Rare]

[Dormant seed capable of growing into a Bloodrose plant under suitable conditions. Alchemical and medicinal applications. No combat value.]

"Seraphina would know what to do with this," Lucien murmured, pocketing it after asking the others.

"For your wife?" Rika asked.

"Hmm, yes, let’s just say that she’s really into alchemy, so she might like this."

The final item sat alone at the bottom of the chest, a small, irregular piece of black-red crystal shaped almost like a coin with a carving of what looked like a drop of liquid, most likely blood sice this was this dungeons theme, it was unremarkable at a glance.

Lucien picked it up, and almost as the same time his various senses and perceptions caught something moving in the chamber, something he had been sensing ever sice they entered the boss room, but he pretended not to notice, amd waited for it to do something.

He turned to the others and showed them the token, asking of they knew what it was.

"What’s this? Some cursed relic, it looks like one to me." Kael said.

He ran Appraisal on it seeing as nobody knew what it was.

[??? Token — Rare]

[Unable to obtain sufficient information.]

’Interesting.’

He turned it slowly between two fingers. For half a second, something felt like it was looking back at him through the crystal.

Then it was gone.

"What is it?" Rika asked.

"No idea, appraisal’s not giving anything beside’s it being a token, maybe I don’t have enough knowledge or something, so it’s blacking out."

"Then why are you staring at it?"

"Because I don’t know what it is, and it’s interesting."

Kael scratched his head. "That makes no sense, if you don’t know what it is, why is it interesting?"

"It does to me."

Nobody else wanted it as they kept their weapons and armor from the chest, so he kept it as their was nothing else that interested him, he tried to store it into his storage ring on reflex, but it stayed.

He tried again.

Still nothing. The token just sat in his palm, refusing to vanish into the ring like everything else had.

’Huh.’

’Must be some kind of material that doesn’t play well with spatial storage, from what I remember, there a alot of things that can’t be stored in spatial storage for a number of reasons.’

He slipped it into his armour’s chest pocket instead and moved on without dwelling on it further.

Once everything was divided, Kael looked at his own pile suspiciously.

"You really don’t want the sword?" he asked Lucien.

"No."

"The armor?"

"No."

"The bracers?"

"Definitely not, what am I going to do with them?."

Kael looked genuinely offended. "What’s wrong with my bracers?"

"Nothing, I just prefer weapons that don’t require punching things and you need new ones, seeing th old ones state."

"...Fair," Kael said, nodding solemnly.

’Meanwhile,’ Lucien thought, ’I already have several liters of compressed Bloodmother blood sitting quietly in my ring, worth infinitely more to me than any of this.’

He kept that particular treasure to himself, not like the others wanted any of it anyway, especially Kael.

They settled near the chamber’s edge to rest, the immediate danger finally gone.

Kael leaned back against a stone slab. "Still alive!"

"Barely," Zalor said, eyes closed.

"That’s dramatic," Vex said.

Kael gestured at his own melted gauntlets. "Look at these, I was almost dissolved."

"You’re still talking."

"Because I’m incredibly durable."

Rika glanced over at Lucien. "You saved us more than once in there."

He shrugged. "We’re a party, no need for thanking me."

She smiled, small but genuine. "Yeah. We are, but still thank you."

Lucien said nothing, but the line settled somewhere deeper than he expected.

’Not just temporary teammates anymore,’ he thought. ’Somewhere along the way, this actually became a friendship.’

’Huh.’

CRASH.

A staircase materialized at the far end of the chamber, descending into darkness and a glowing portal bloomed beside it a heartbeat later.

"Looks like our exits here," Rika smiled standing.

"And the way down to Floor Six," Vex added, eyeing the stairs.

The mood sobered slightly.

"Floors Six through Ten are B-Rank territory," Rika said. "We’re C-Rank, that boss nearly took Kael’s arm off."

"...Yeah," Kael admitted, for once without argument.

"We cleared what we came for," Rika said. "So pushing further’s beyond reckless and stupid."

"Agreed," Zalor said.

Kael sighed. "Yeah, no way I’m heading down to my death."

"What about you, Luc?"

Lucien glanced toward the staircase, thoughts rolling.

’B-Rank monsters. High B-Rank me. Probably wouldn’t be much trouble.’

’But the girls are still out there, and I have no idea what’s happening at home.’

’I can come back for this later and solo next time, probably.’ He thought.

"Yeah, no way I’m heading down." He said, falling into step with the others toward the portal.

Rika went first, then Vex, then Zalor and Kael together.

Lucien lingered a half-second at the rear, glancing once more at the staircase down, wondering if he should head down or not.

’Nah, next time.’

He turned and stepped forward as something flickered into his senses.

’Finally decided to act, mysterious person.’

BOOM.

Something sharp struck him from the side, faster than sight but not for his senses, aimed dead center at his heart.

He twisted on instinct, catching part of the impact on his forearm and chest instead of taking it clean to the heart, but not enough to stop it entirely. The blow drove home into his chest instead, right where the token sat, as it started into him.

He caught, for a fraction of a second, the barest impression of a figure, gone before his eyes could resolve anything more.

’Fuck, poison?’

Then he was airborne.

"LUC?!"

His body slammed across the stone floor.

BANG.

Bounced once, then twice and slid straight toward the staircase down to Floor Six.

Kael spun around at the sound. "LUC!"

His eyes went wide with panic. "WHAT THE HELL?!"

He turned to grab him but it was too late, as Lucien’s body crossed the staircase and vanished, with Kael’s hand closing on empty air.

"WAIT!"

The exit portal seized him from behind, and his vision went white.

Kael appeared outside the dungeon, still processing what happened, Rika, Vex, and Zalor already turning toward him.

"Where’s Lucien?" Rika demanded.

Kael gathered his thoughts, still panicking. "He was ambushed!"

"What?"

"I don’t know! We were leaving and something hit him, he flew straight into the Floor Six staircase!"

Vex’s expression went cold. "Something attacked him inside the boss chamber?"

"I DON’T KNOW! I couldn’t reach him!"

Rika’s gaze snapped back toward the dungeon entrance, worry cutting through her composure for the first time since they’d entered.

"Lucien..."

Zalor’s jaw tightened. "Someone must have been in there with us, since the start."

Meanwhile somewhere on floor six, Lucien lay motionless, his armor torn where the blow had landed with a thin line of blood flowing from it, most of the blow blocked by the token.

He wasn’t moving.

The sound of steps broke the quiet, as a shadow fell over him.

A hand descended, closing around the hilt of the dagger buried in his chest and the crystal tike, removing it.

The crystal split down its center.

CRACK.

Crimson light burst outward surprising the attacker, swallowing Lucien whole, as his body vanished.

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<annotations style="display: none;">What do you guy&#39;s think happened to Lucien?</annotations>