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Early Evening - Late Spring : Kingdom of Kaelallan

- Oliver Kaelallan ~

*Thump* *Bang* The entire lift shook from the distant vibrations as I descended towards the shelter.

-What in the world is happening down there..-

*Thump* Once I finally got to the bottom of the lift, I heard the sound of a mass of water hitting the ground. *Wshhhh*

*Thump*

-Just what..- Looking over towards the source of the noise, I saw a huge pillar of water coming out of the hot spring. -What is he doing?-

Making my way towards the spring, I wanted to look into the water to make sure everything was alright but got distracted by the new white and gold trim along the edge of the spring.

-Gold?- It took a moment for my mind to process what that gold really meant. -He can make gold too!?-

At the time, I assumed he could only make basic, silver-colored metals, but that assumption was destroyed just as easily as it was made.

As I looked around at the rest of the hot spring, I noticed that the amount of white stone and gold were not small. -It can't be real gold, right? That much could make several gold coins…-

Continuing to get closer, I knelt at the side of the pool and pressed my nail into the gold trim. -Oh my lord… Its rea...- *BANG*

Cutting my thoughts short, a massive plume of water was launched out of the spring, completely soaking me in the process.

*Wshhhh* Through the pitter-patter of the water hitting the ground, a youthful draconic voice met my ears. "Oh, welcome back Oliver."

- Vasilias ~

I was sitting at the bottom of the spring playing with implosion magic when I faintly felt someone’s presence outside. -Oh someone’s here. Is it Oliver?- But when I pulled my focus away from the spell I was holding to reason who it could be, the spell set itself off.

*Bang* The water around me instantly vanished as it was all thrown into the air. -Dammit, again?!-

After letting the water eventually crash back down, I finally swam back up to the surface and started sucking the moisture out of the surrounding air to return it to the spring.

As I did that, I finally noticed Oliver standing there with soaked clothes. "Oh, welcome back Oliver." Not bothering to apologize about getting him wet, I moved my magic over him and quickly dried him off. -There, good as new…-

But even after drying him off, he just stood there, frozen with a look of awe.

"Hello? Oliver?" I lightly nudged him with the back of my nail to try and snap him out of his thoughts.

"Ah right sorry. I was just.. shocked is all." His voice was a bit shaky but I didn't pay it mind.

-It's probably nothing…- "So what do you need? You wouldn't have just come down for a bath, right?"

"No, of course not.” His normal, noble air started to return as he calmed down and brushed his clothes. “I came down to give you a bonus reward for saving my life again."

It was as if money signs appeared in my eyes as I hopped out of the spring and changed to my humanoid form. "Lead the way!"

"Okay, but first of all, how did you get that gold?" His eyes were still locked on the edge of the spring.

-Hm? That?- "Well, I thought the spring looked a bit dull so I made it."

It was clear he didn't believe me though. "What do you mean, ‘you made it’?"

"Like I used earth magic and made it." I casually held out my hand and created a small gold ball in my palm.

Oliver just stood there in awe, but it was an understandable reaction.

Humanoids were simply far too lacking in not only mana and scientific knowledge but also the brain power to be able to create any moderately pure material using random particles floating in the air.

The best they could do was manipulate the attributes of an already existing material, like coal or stone to make gunpowder with alchemy.

But even then, alchemy was rarely seen in this world in recent decades. Once mining operations increased and nations were able to supply good blacksmiths with quality materials, alchemists were shifted out of relevance.

But it was clear just by seeing the subtle greed on Oliver's face that he was reconsidering their potential uses. "Do you think you could make a gold coin with that?"

"Yeah." I molded the ball in my hand to a near exact replica of a gold coin with Kaelallans crest.

"Ahem, how about I commission you to tea-"

"No." I already knew what he planned to ask. -You think a human can learn how to do that?-

But even with my blunt rejection, he still wore an odd smile. "Why not?"

"Let's say theoretically, a human with twenty times as much mana as Michael somehow knew how to do it, he still wouldn't be able to even make a gold nugget."

Oliver’s smile slowly faded as he realized what I meant.

"Humans fundamentally lack more than just mana and method to be able to do it, Oliver." Without knowing it, I started to get annoyed, but thankfully, my point was finally driven across.

"Haah.. I guess that's fair.” As his head fell with a disappointed look, he pulled himself back together and changed the subject. “Well let's go to the vault."

Quickly making our way into the stone warehouse, we walked all the way to the end of the hall where we were met with a massive metal door with a crank handle on it. (Like ones on a submarine hatch or a bulky safe. Couldn't find the actual name of it.)

But although the handle looked like the obvious way to open it, Oliver tapped certain spots of the metal wall like they were buttons.

-So it has a passcode?-

Once he finished pressing buttons, a loud metal clang was heard and the door slowly swung open by itself.

-He didn’t touch the handle at all?- "What's that big handle for?"

"It's just a distraction, that handle doesn't actually turn much, it just activates a failsafe and is there to stall for time."

-Hm… That's quite smart…-

With the door finally open enough to let us into the room, I looked back to notice it was significantly smaller than expected but was completely full of treasure that was all neatly organized around the room.

But even with the innumerable chest filled with beautiful gems and the countless perfectly crafted weapons lining the walls, one thing, in particular, caught my eye.

At the very center of the room, on an extremely gaudy golden pedestal, was a monster core.

It was nearly half a meter wide and was an extremely deep, flowing blue.

My mouth instantly started watering as I imagined how it tasted.

"You seem to like that core…" Oliver's voice carried a bit of discomfort.

Snapping out of my thoughts, I looked over at him. "Are you reluctant to give it up?"

"Well.. it's the royal family's heirloom. We don't have any uses for it and I won't go back on my word if you want it though."

"Hmm… I'll look around first."

I spent the next hour or so looking through the various chests and thinking about what I really needed currently.

-Don't need a weapon. Don't need the gold. Don't need any of the artifacts…- But as I was looking through everything, I noticed a small black rectangular ‘thing’ laying on the ground.

-Hey, that looks like a phone!- A smile came to my face as it brought back a wave of nostalgia.

Picking it up, I looked around for buttons but couldn't find anything.

-Haha, imagine if it had a home button.- As a joke, I tapped my thumb on the bottom of the screen. *Beep*

Both Oliver and I instantly froze, letting the noise of Ilios walking down the hall echo through the silence.

-This thing.. might actually be a phone…- Following the beep, an unfamiliar symbol formed on the screen before disappearing and displaying ‘0’. -Is that, its charge?- An instant later, the display returned to black.

In a desperate attempt to try and give it life, I scanned through its insides to look for a battery I could charge, but every bit of technology within it was insanely foreign. -What am I even looking at?-

I ended up spending the next several minutes just trying to find something that even resembled a battery, but to no avail.

But that didn't mean I gave up on it. "I'll take this." -I'm sure I'll eventually figure something out…-

Oliver just stared at me with a confused look. "That's an artifact we found quite a while back. It came from the sky along with a bunch of unusual scrap. We ended up selling and reusing the scrap but we kept this since it was still intact."

-So this came from space just like the cube, huh…- "Yeah I'll take this." Although the core was very enticing, I assumed it would only expand my reserve. I couldn't just pass up the opportunity to get a step closer to finding out what that cube was.

"Alright, well I hope you don't regret it." Oliver was humble on the surface, but under that facade was joy. A joy that I took something seemingly worthless over his family heirloom.

As we eventually walked out of the vault, we didn't talk at all. I was busy inspecting the 'phone' and Oliver didn't care to interrupt, but once we got out of the warehouse, Oliver looked like he wanted to speak up.

"What is it?"

"Ah, I was just wondering if you could do one last thing for me." He seemed a bit awkward as he spoke.

-Sounds troublesome..- "And that would be?"

"Could you go with Lucy to school tomorrow? She seemed down when I said you probably weren't going to go at the same time as her."

"How about you get me a decent-sized monster core as payment?" The huge core in the vault made me hungry for one, even if it was small.

"A..alright, I'll see what I can do."

Although I could see he wasn't super happy with it, he still accepted so I complied. "Well, I guess I'll see her tomorrow morning then."

"Haah..." Letting out a deep sigh, Oliver walked back over to the lift and left the shelter.

“Well then, what now?” As I glanced back to Ilios, who sat next to me, I saw him let out a big yawn. -Hm…- "How about a nap?"

"Ouu-Woof." With a lethargic nod, he looked up at me with a wagging tail.

-Haha, I'll take that as a yes.- Seeing how tired he was, I made my way over to the cushions and curled up to let Ilios lay in my embrace.

Seeing his adorable smile as he closed his eyes made me move my head over and nuzzle against him. “Haah…” -Petting his fur is true bliss…-