Chapter 97 – And miles to go before I sleep.

The headmaster pointed at his rune-powered pocket watch and said, “Three minutes left, boy.”

I went on a grabbing spree of all the items so that I could cast the widest net. There was no need for me to consider items beyond surface level. Thinking too hard about all the minutiae would inevitably leave me in a position where I could only choose subpar items.

My left hand picked up and dropped down items in quick succession while my right hand worked on pressing the System’s buttons to get information out of it.

[Ring of Speed: You move much faster, but so does everything else.]

Useless for anything other than wasting time.

[General Gerrard’s Gem: When held, multiplies the physical strength gained from one’s Body level by 2.]

This was an exceptionally good item for a fighter but not for me. If I were to find nothing useful, I considered choosing the gem for Penrin. Her strength was already at a high level so this item would make her even stronger.

[Long and Short of it Bow: This bow gets to the point.]

The point of what exactly?

[Treasure Map: A secret map that leads towards hidden treasure.]

Depending on the treasure, this was useful. Thankfully, I didn’t have to pick it and I simply memorised the crude drawing. Though, if the treasure was already found, there was no use looking for it. I asked the headmaster, “Do you know where this map leads?”

The headmaster nodded. “Right here.” He gestured around to the room we were in.

I crumpled the stupid map up and threw it aside.

[Femur of a Lucky Person: Perhaps this will bring you luck.]

Or perhaps it wouldn’t.

[Endless Orange: An orange that can be juiced forever.]

Good for preventing scurvy I supposed. And it could be a valuable source of nutrition for some.

[Flexible Armband: When worn, increases flexibility. Scales off of Body.]

I wondered how much a circus performer would pay for it.

[Sun Glasses: Spectacles that shoot out harmful rays of light which increase in power based on Soul level.]

Yet another item to join the list of useless objects.

I was shuffling through magical items at a great pace but still, I wasn’t finding anything that suited my fancy. Most of the items had no use whatsoever, and the other half required Body or Soul. I hadn’t found a single item that became stronger off of Mind level.

[Elixir of Body: The consumer of this liquid gains a permanent boost of 50% to their Body level.]

This was another amazing item for a fighter. I chucked it into a pile of gold.

“Careful with that!” said the headmaster. “That’s a priceless treasure.” He quickly dove into the pile of money to make sure the glass bottle wasn’t cracked or damaged in any way. “Phew. I almost don’t even want to give this away as a reward. It’s too powerful to hand out to the likes of someone like you.”

I was somewhat offended.

He cradled the elixir in his arms like a baby. “You’re safe with me.” His pocket watch made a ding. “Oh, and you have 30 seconds left to choose, boy.”

That wasn’t enough time. I had searched through hundreds of items but there was still much more to explore. “Can I have an extension?” I asked. It was a cheeky request but one that I had to make.

“No,” the headmaster replied firmly. “Not even I am allowed to spend too long in here. There is much opportunity for wrongdoing that the school wishes to minimise.” He lightly placed the elixir down in a safe spot.

I felt it was futile to go on searching. I had to choose from all the items I found before time ran out. However, there really wasn’t any great outlier. “Headmaster, do you know any items that benefit from a high level of Mind?”

The old man’s brows creased. “Mind? Why would you want something like that?”

I made a circling motion with my hand and asked him to hurry along an answer. “There’s hardly any time left. Is there anything that I could use?”

The headmaster scratched his scalp while trying to remember. “Hmm. I do recall a few items that are tied to one’s Mind level.” He went over to a corner of the room and pulled out a miniature replica of a hot air balloon. “Long long ago, this item was created by,” he scratched his head again. “Who was it now? Maltby the Inventor? Or Malton the Inventor?”

While he tried to remember the item’s lore, I had already taken it from his hands. I wanted to read the System’s description of it before time ran out. That way, if it was useless, I could always choose one of the previous items I had seen.

However, I had an initial difficulty finding the item in the System. It was not under the normal item section, instead it was under the property section. The few seconds I wasted on finding the thing were not inconsequential.

[Mind Balloon: When activated, this item enlarges and can be flown by the user. Its flight height and movement speed scale off of the user’s Mind. Requires 25 Mind to activate and fly.]

My brain instantly became awash with ideas. If this item was as described, I could fly all over the world without any expense. My possibilities increased a great deal with travel like that being possible. I could already feel the wind in my hair from flying between cities, maybe taking odd jobs to transport goods. Living as a flying freelancer surely paid well.

And to add on, something that I hadn’t considered at first, this balloon was a property. I glossed over it in my haste to read the description, but being a property made it many times more useful. With my Fast Travel ability, I could teleport between my properties.

That meant that I could travel all day, teleport home to sleep in my comfy room, and then teleport back to the spot I had travelled to. It was essentially a mobile beacon for me to teleport to. That ability alone made it incredibly useful, but combined with the ability to make me fly through the skies, it was invaluable.

I had to take it. Time was running low and I couldn’t imagine anything better.

“You’ve got 5 seconds left,” said the headmaster after finishing his monologue about the hot-air-balloon’s origins. “Pick something or we’re leaving without your reward.”

I held up the miniature balloon and chose it as my prize. I admired the red and white stripes on the balloon and pinched the little basket between my fingers. It was sturdy for something so small.

“Good. Now let’s walk out and get on with our lives.” The headmaster located his keys and stepped towards the exit.

“Walk?” I laughed. “There’s no need for me to walk anymore.” I hurled the miniature balloon into the air beside me and activated it. The item grew in size before my eyes. The balloon was upright and floating even though it had no hot air inside it. The basket was softly touching the ground.

I climbed into the basket and tried to mentally control the balloon. I focused my thoughts on raising the balloon a few inches higher. As soon as I commanded it, the balloon slowly went upwards.

It was a strange feeling to float in the air. I had never been in a hot-air-balloon before and so I was unused to the sensation. My stomach felt light and my head was ever so slightly dizzy. “This is amazing.” I swayed back and forth like I was on a hammock.

The headmaster looked up at me in awe. “Incredible. This is the first time I’ve seen someone actually capable of using the balloon.” His wide eyes seemed to sparkle a smidgen. “May I?” asked the headmaster with some hesitation. “May I ride it along with you?”

With the great mood I was in, there was no way I would refuse. “Of course you can!” I lowered the balloon until the basket touched the ground.

The headmaster hoisted himself into the basket and steadied himself. “It’s said that only two people have ever been able to properly use this thing.” The headmaster’s grip on the side of the basket was strong. He was hanging on for dear life, and we weren’t even in the air yet.

“I guess I’m the third,” I said.

“I suppose so.” He chuckled to himself. “I take it you have invested into Mind? What a difficult path you’ve chosen. Those who increase their Mind do not become stronger in the same way as people who choose Body and Soul. Therefore, it becomes hard for a Mind user to level up because they cannot defeat monsters, and thus they are left with hardly any levels or points to put into Mind.”

“I see.” That explained why certain people like army generals might have picked Mind as a secondary stat but never a primary.

“It brings these old bones joy that you were stupid enough to invest into a useless stat like Mind so I could enjoy this creation. Now, let’s fly.” He smiled and pointed towards the tall ceiling of the treasure room.

I was close to kicking him off the balloon for insulting me like that, but I was excited to ascend too. I directed the hot-air-balloon up and we started floating.

The headmaster wobbled his legs and made strange noises of imbalance.

What impressed me was that this hot-air-balloon used up no MP at all. It somehow didn’t seem to run on mana. Either there was an alternative fuel source, or it ran purely off of my brain waves.

“We are flying!” the headmaster quietly exclaimed to himself.

I decided to go up even further to test the balloon’s limit. It didn’t take me long to find it. After a metre, the balloon stopped. “What’s happening?” I asked. I tried raising the balloon some more, but it wouldn’t go above about a metre’s length. I then tried lowering it and then raising it some more. That worked but the balloon still stopped at 1 metre.

“Strange,” said the headmaster. “Perhaps try moving horizontally?”

I nodded my head. I commanded the balloon to move in the direction I was pointing, and it worked. It moved. However, the pace was equal to an average person’s walking speed. “Why is it so slow?” I wondered. Vertically, I couldn’t go above a metre, and horizontally, I couldn’t move faster than a brisk walk.

The headmaster rubbed his chin with his thumb. “Hmm. Wait, boy, what exactly is your Mind level?”

I answered, “26, why?”

The headmaster groaned. “Bah! That little? Of course it hardly works when you have such little stat points!”

“Little?” I said. To me, 26 was quite a lot. Especially considering all the benefits my Mind stat had given me.

“I should have assumed as much considering you were participating in the Sports Day for level 30s and under.” The headmaster shook his head and requested, “You can let me down now, for the second time.”

I really wanted to push the ungrateful geezer off now, but I was more concerned with the dud of an item I had picked. Could it really only travel at such a low speed? It would take me far too long to get anywhere at that pace. A carriage could travel 10 times the distance as me in my balloon.

The pain of that could be alleviated if I could fly in the air, but this thing couldn’t get a metre off of the ground.

I had such high hopes, and they fell to the floor. I lowered the balloon and deactivated it to turn it back into a miniature. It reverted to a size that I could fit in my pocket.

After having already chosen my item, there was no changing my pick. I had to accept the decision I had made with dignity. Plus, there was a good chance of the item becoming useful in the future, when my Mind became higher. I gracefully came to terms with my choice.

While facing the headmaster, I placed both of my palms on the ground and brought my forehead to the floor. “PLEASE let me pick something else. I made a mistake. I would rather have the endless orange over this thing. Come on, have a heart. You’re not going to let me walk out of here with a balloon that the average person can jump higher than and walk faster than, are you?”

Disgusted by my pleading, the headmaster tried to lift me up. “Get off the floor. Have some self-respect, boy! You can’t change your choice and time is already up.”

“No!” I thrashed about. “Please let me pick again.” I ran over to some of the items I hadn’t yet inspected. “What about this?” I picked up a bottle filled with an opaque yellow liquid. “Can I trade for this? Or give me a 2 for 1 deal.” The headmaster was appalled with my behaviour, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t about to let this opportunity go to waste by caring too much about my pride.

The headmaster sighed. “Fine. You can have that, but nothing else. Now let’s leave.”

“I can have it?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said the headmaster. “It’s just junk anyway. I was about to throw it out, but you can have it if you want. Take it along with your balloon and leave.”

It didn’t seem right that there would be junk lying around a treasure room. I checked the System for an explanation.

[Elixir of Mind: The consumer of this liquid gains a permanent boost of 50% to their Mind level.]

My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. Was I about to be given such a powerful boost for free? How could the headmaster call this elixir junk? It was incredibly powerful. In fact, the headmaster had called a similar item invaluable.

“Wait a minute,” I said. I trotted over to the Elixir of Body and held it in my right hand, while I held the Mind elixir in my left hand. I held my left hand up to the headmaster and asked, “What’s this?”

He replied, “A worthless potion that increases Mind.”

I then lowered my left hand and held up my right hand. “What about this?”

His whole expression and posture changed, as if he was looking at a divine artefact. He said, “That right there is the magnificent Elixir of Body that can multiply one’s Body level.”

“I see,” I said. I held up my left hand again.

“Useless trash that I should’ve thrown away ages ago.”

I raised my right hand.

“A precious concoction that no appraiser could put a price on.”

My left hand.

“A waste of a good glass bottle.”

My right hand.

“Liquid gold in a container.”

Left.

“Utter rubbish.”

Right.

“Marvellous beauty.”