Chapter 129: Chapter One Hundred Twenty Nine

Despite the rush of excitement we were feeling Zeke didn't seem in  too big a hurry to start. He took his time clearing the table away so he  could have some free space on the floor to work in, and then had as put  the box down on the ground for him to open and sort through. Despite  his power I couldn't help but issue the same warning we'd been repeating  ad nauseum. "Some of that stuff is probably cursed, man. Not that it  could probably hurt you much, but still, it's something you might want  to take into account."

Zeke, however, just seemed bored by  the idea. "Curses are a type of ability, and like all other skills and  abilities they become markedly less viable against an enemy when they're  used against someone more that one or two ranks above you. The Impact  alone just makes it nearly impossible for them to take effect. They can  theoretically lock onto me, but its the difference between an ant biting  a baby or a block of carbon steel. The latter just isn't going to have  an effect. Even if there was a thousand G rank curses in here they  couldn't put a scratch on me."

That made sense, though I  wondered if there was a theoretical number of curses you could stack to  reach enough power to hurt someone that much higher ranked than you.  Still, now wasn't the time for that. Zekes first move was to flip open  the backpack and pull out the box, looking it over slowly. His eyes  glowed slightly as he stared at the storage device. "Huh, low grade  spatial artifact. G rank. The low rank is why it's so bulky. You can  only fold space so much at the lower ranks. It's why you see lots of  spatial expansions on buildings and cars but no rings and pouches on  planets like this."

I hadn't considered that, but it did  make sense in a weird way. Fantasy worked by altering the world to fit  an idea, being able to fit a big pocket space into a big real space was  easier to envision than fitting a building sized area into a ring. Not  that I was exactly sure how the process worked, but as a layman the idea  at least made sense. Having a much higher Fantasy stat would  undoubtedly make packing more space into a smaller area easier...if that  was how it worked. Hell, maybe that assumption was the entire reason it  WAS easier, it wouldn't be the first time weird impressions screwed  with reality where cultivation was concerned.

He flipped  it open and turned it upside down without any preamble, and I wished  we'd had some warning because that shit was LOUD. A cascade of gold  coins poured out of the upended box like a tsunami crashing into the  seawall of an island fortress. The absolute TORRENT of shining yellow  metal sounded like nothing I'd ever experienced before, and even my  Focus couldn't prevent the sound from overwhelming me given my  Perception (probably because the former was so much lower). Callie and I  both covered our ears to blot out the noise until we saw it finally  come to an end.

We both glared at Zeke, who just shot us  disapproving frowns. "Gold? What are you gremlins? Mortal gold is  absolutely useless. Why would fill up fully half of this damn thing with  pathetic sparkly soft metal?" He shook his head in disappointment. "You  two were mortals WAY too recently. You have to shake your attachment to  things that used to be valuable now that you've begun your Ascent.  Hoarding is a bad habit to develop when you're low rank."

I  rolled my eyes. "Please, you have like hundreds of masks lying around,  and they're all low ranked. You're telling me you don't keep souvenirs?"  I hadn't seen Zeke stocking up on random stuff, granted, but he'd never  been the type to get rid of anything that seemed useful. I knew him  well enough to be pretty sure that he was a pack rat, even if I couldn't  think of a specific example of the behavior off the top of my head  right now.

That got a genuine bark of laughter. "First off  kid, I MAKE those masks. They're part of my powers, and they're  intrinsically tied to me. Second of all I said hoarding is a bad idea AT  LOWER RANKS. Not that you shouldn't get good stuff, but keeping a huge  stockpile of valuable goods on you without the strength to back it up is  just asking to get robbed, and useless junk just takes up space for no  reason. Once you're stronger and have the spatial artifacts to hold it  all you can of course carry as much bullshit as you want. I have more  useless cultivation bullshit on my person right now than there are items  on this planet."

That...made sense. Damn it. "So what, we  should only carry a few things on us at once? Do we stash the shit  around the planet and come back for it? Put it in a bank? Or are we just  supposed to live like monks until we hit D rank? Because we're going to  be collecting a ton of shit during this hunt, and I don't know what the  hell you're suggesting we do with it." I wasn't planning to leave a  bunch of useful artifacts behind, though I knew he was right about the  gold, it had been silly to take it.

He just shook his  head, sighing in exasperation. "Sell them. No matter how much money you  have on you there's always going to be people richer to rob. Expensive  cultivation materials can draw greedy eyes and dastardly plans, but  despite being useful, money by far more ubiquitous in the universe. It's  easier to rob some fat store owner than to track down a rare Ascendant  material. Any stuff you aren't using to enchant or cultivate you should  sell, at least for the foreseeable future. You never know what crazy  asshole might need that exact artifact or material."

Callie,  obviously, looked murderous at the idea of having to offload almost all  of our loot whenever we got some. I on the other hand, understood  Zeke's point, but also suspected that he might have lost some  perspective on exactly what being lower ranked was actually like. Being  strong for such a long time would definitely have given him a higher  viewpoint than most, but it was easy to look down on a G ranker once you  passed that point. I wasn't entirely sure we were as likely to get  robbed as he thought, though I couldn't discount the advice either.

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Regardless  Zeke wasn't perfect, and given all the crafting I did giving up  materials wasn't ideal unless I knew for sure I could get new ones to  replace them. Seeing we weren't convinced my Uncle just shrugged and  moved on. "Anyway, there are quite a few items in here that are worth at  least a bit, though obviously nothing I would consider valuable  personally. I'll probably just pick whatever is worth the most money as  my compensation, though again, you do have a veto if it's something you  need."

He  started sifting through the gold, smiling fondly at some of the things  he was finding. "Been a while since I've seen most of this junk." He  picked up the glass box with the hand in it. "Hand of Glory, G rank,  decently useful thieving artifact. Not cursed but generally unpleasant  to make." He set it down, picking up the red crystal butterfly.  "Heartbeat Monarch. You sync it to someones heart rhythm and it lets you  keep track of them from a distance. It works pretty much anywhere and  is a good way to make sure loved ones are still alive and healthy."

He  picked up the black rock rose. "Rotprick Blossom. Naturally releases a  decaying poison." The dagger was next. "Spectral Severer, cuts things  that aren't physically there." He paused. "This one is actually  interesting. Physical weapons that effect the immaterial without needing  skills or elemental affinities are kind of rare." Setting the dagger to  the side he gave a contemplative look. "I'll put a pin in that one  actually. None of this is useful to me but that's a neat gimmick at  least."

Shaking  off his interest he got back to identifying things. He picked up the  pair of earrings. "Ok now THIS is cursed. Makes you unable to read  social context and perceive threats to your safety outside of direct  attacks. That IS nasty." Rather than worried he sounded interested, and  eventually slipped them in his pocket. "Haven't seen a foe blinding  curse this low rank before that still functions. The design is pretty  economical. Most curses are stat hogs that limp in with WAY too much  Fantasy to offset bad design fundamentals. I'm keeping these, unless you  want to veto it?"

Neither  of us did, and he smiled and got back to work. He picked up the  hourglass, frowning at it for a minute. "This one is VERY interesting.  Peak G rank. When you flip over the hourglass it starts a minor time  loop that resets as soon as the sand hits the bottom. Only usable once.  May not seem useful since you have to actually activate it first, but  it's pretty amazing for delicate operations that require you to guess  something. I'd hang onto this one actually, never know what a do over  will come in handy. Just don't tell anyone else what it can do and you  should be fine."

We  both gaped at the object, shocked by the sheer power it held, but when  he pointed out exactly how limited it was we calmed down a bit. Luckily  you needed intent to trigger it, so just flipping it over did nothing. I  was able to check the exact time on it that way and it only turned out  to be ten minutes or so which also somewhat lowered the value. The last  two artifacts were the small wooden hammer and the cane, and Zeke picked  up the hammer first. "Judgement Gavel. Reinflicts every healed wound  from the last hour. Also single use, but nasty in the right context."

As  he put that down, he finally picked up the cane. "This one is a beauty.  Kinetic cane. No death affinity despite the morbid theme. Basically the  whole thing is designed to charge off kinetic strikes and energy. Once  it's full the rubies in the eyes glow, and you can discharge it in one  swing on the next attack. It's pretty much peak G rank in terms of  composition, so it can hold a LOT of force, but it'll take a monstrous  amount of time to charge based on the amount of force leached with each  hit."

That  WAS cool. It reminded me of my tonfas, but better in some ways. Granted  it wasn't enchanted to increase force, but I had skills for that, and it  was a flat upgrade in terms of durability. Plus it would give me a  legitimate ace in the hold if I ran into something really scary in the  future. I held out my hand, taking the thing from him and twirling it  between my fingers, liking the balance. I might be due for an upgrade at  this point, I would be F rank soon enough and my own Enchanting Skill  wasn't good enough to keep up.

With  all the treasures identified Zeke flipped the box lid closed. "Anyway,  we're done here. I'm taking the earrings if you don't want them, you can  decide what to do with everything else. Also not cleaning this gold up,  sorry not sorry." He turned and dashed from the room, leaving us both  scowling at his retreating form. I knew he was fast enough to vanish  entirely if he wanted to so he was clearly messing with us. I snorted  and shook my head, turning to Callie and holding up the cane with a  smile. I wondered if I could get sole ownership of it for a wish.

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