[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 35: Voidwalker

Sam held the ring up to the pale light that suffused the Dark Vault’s airy arena.

[Ducal Guard’s Signet]

(Ring) (F-Class)

(☆ Primitive VII)

Enhancements

Physical Defense I | Status Resist I

+1 Strength | +1 Vigor

+1 Dexterity | +1 Awareness

A ring passed down from one Ducal Guard to another in service to a now-forgotten kingdom. The valiant Deeds of those who previously wore this band have been passed on to you. Though their strength has waned through the ages, the ring provides exceptional defense so that you, too, may protect those things you most hold dear. A strange sigil of a sword and wings is engraved upon the green stone set into the band.

Requires: [Fighter] or one of its Evolutions

Very nice, Sam thought as he slid the ring onto his left-hand middle-finger. It expanded slightly to fit over the gauntlet with ease. A thread of mana bound the item, filling him with the sensation of strength and protection.

All that was left was to see what was in the pouch.

“Are you hitting any limits or restrictions as to how much you can equip at once?” Raiko asked, curious. “And receive their enhancements as well.”

Sam looked up from the pouch’s strange metallic contents. “What do you mean?”

“Once upon a time that wasn’t so long ago, an individual could only equip one item per slot. That was if they had the necessary unlocks too,” Raiko said with a wry smirk. “Accessories were the exception, to a degree. Levels and Jobs were typically the only requirements, though even something as simple as that is somewhat fuzzy. Seems equipment is a bit more skill based now.”

“I didn’t try to keep my half-gloves on and put the gauntlet on top of that. Didn’t seem to make much sense to keep it on.”

“Doubt it’d work,” she admitted. “There are better times to experiment anyhow.”

“I like my new loot, feels good on my fur,” Komachi said. “Even has a hole for muh tail!”

His cat being happy brought a smile to his face. Her new robe was a definite upgrade. Now she also had some magical defense as well.

He noticed with frustration that his gear was lacking magical defense, except for his cloak. Though it was looking rough after the battle with the golem and the Warden.

Sam had only been able to use [Basic Maintenance] on it, and the difference between it and the equipment that he could repair by manipulating its Metal was worlds apart.

All the more reason not to let any casters get the drop on me.

That wouldn’t work for long. Eventually, he would face magic users, and he needed to come up with a proper answer to their common strategies before that point.

Aside from finding a way to teleport or move incredibly fast, Sam would need a way to respond to long-range attacks both physical and magical.

He wasn’t sure whether cloth-based equipment tended to have magical defense, and heavier metal equipment typically provided physical defense.

While that made sense to a degree, there was no reason to assume that was automatically how things worked. He needed to find more equipment to see. Even then, it could be different depending on the exact materials the equipment was made of, and whatever mana it was imbued with.

Already there appeared to be certain differences in properties between bronze and blackiron. While the gauntlet was just a piece of armor on his hand, and therefore much smaller so it wasn’t a direct comparison, it was still considerably lighter than the claymore.

If he had to choose, he would have selected those materials, anyway. A heavier metal for the weapon, a lighter one for the armor. Though if he truly had the Strength to sustain it all, Sam would have opted for heavy materials in both.

Sam hoped one day he’d be able to make such fine-tuned selections for his equipment, whether that was browsing through shops in a marketplace, making bids on an auction house somewhere, or finding a whole vault of treasure stacked to the ceiling with loot.

Who knows, maybe this Dark Vault has stuff at the end even better than what this treasure chest coughed up, Sam thought.

He wasn’t sure what the future held, or what this new world would become, but he remained eager to discover it all and find out.

Upending the pouch, Sam let the contents clink and clatter into his hand. They were hexagonal pieces of metal that reminded him a bit of flattened rupees from Zelda games. With two long sides and four short, angled ones at either end, they fit easily in the palm of his hand.

One was silvery gray, the others were made of either bronze or copper. Sam wasn’t very good at telling the difference. It wasn’t the sort of thing you usually were quizzed on.

The sound drew Komachi’s attention. Her pupils went wide. Her tail fizzed like a dandelion. Basically, full on cat-mode.

Sam tossed one to her, letting her bat it around like a cat toy while he inspected the silvery one. There were intriguing sigils running down the flat face of each piece. The same types were identical, but the silvery gray piece was just slightly different. Sam couldn’t shake the feeling that he was looking at a coin.

[Steel Rel Piece]

(Currency)

Worth 10 rel, [Steel Rel Pieces] are less common than their [Bronze Rel Piece] counterparts, which form the basis of the accepted Lesser Shardune Realm economy. Melt it down, spend it, or give it away. The choice is yours.

Sam’s first thought was, melt it down? So these aren’t like normal currency where they’re coated pieces of metal then. I wonder if there’s a conversion between steel ingots and steel rels.

Probably not much of one.

“This is money,” Sam told Komachi. He tried to get the piece he tossed to Komachi back, but the cat swiped at his hand and pulled the coin closer.

Komachi looked at him with those wide soulful eyes. Her normal emerald-green irises were little more than thin circles amid the darkness of her dilated pupils.

Sam recognized attack-mode when he saw it and left it at that. Besides, Komachi had every right to the money too. So did Raiko, now that he thought about it.

He turned to the ethereal woman. “We can’t exactly split equipment, but we can divvy up this money,” Sam told her. “Do you have any way of taking it, or should we wait?”

Raiko glanced at the coins. For a moment, her irises flared violet. “My Inventory is mostly full and isn’t entirely in a functional state. Even still, it’s yours. All of it.”

“All of it?” Sam asked, as if he hadn’t heard her right. “While I’m not suggesting we were equal in the fight, I don’t think it’s fair you get nothing.”

“I can scarcely affect the material plane. As it is, you’re the powerhouse and my tether,” she admitted, bowing her head. “Your bloodline is of exceptional use in this strange place, making this an ideal scenario to train it. Everything, and I mean everything gained here, should go towards making you stronger and more resilient. Truthfully, I don’t mind.”

He opened his mouth to object, then thought better of it. Not only because he recognized the truth in her words, but because it seemed a stupid point to argue.

If he became stronger, he would be more useful. That was the truth, no matter which way you looked at it.

Besides, her smile wasn’t sad this time. In her eyes, this was all a good thing. Maybe even a mutually beneficial thing if they actually stuck together, so why shouldn’t he feel the same way?

Not that he had seen any hint of shops or merchants, unless that one drifting Starbucks in the distance had actual workers there.

Something Sam deeply doubted.

Sam rubbed the raised sigils on the surface of the coin. It was much larger than anything he was used to, not that he was used to coins anymore.

His childhood was the only time he ever remembered holding or touching coins on anything approaching a regular basis. Now it was all cards and digital. Nobody jingled around pocket change anymore.

Which was good, in a way. He had lost more coins while swimming or playing in the ocean than he did at the arcade.

Too big to roll across the backs of his knuckles, Sam tried to bend the coin but found that he couldn’t. He had no idea if it was completely steel through and through, or just plated, but his Metal intuition suggested that it was pure steel.

At least, as pure as you could get out of an alloyed metal.

While not ideal… a blacksmith could probably smelt these down and make something out of them if they didn’t have any ore on hand, or couldn’t make steel yet considering the description literally suggested that as an option.

Then again, who knows if that’s how it would actually work. If you couldn’t create steel—which Sam only tentatively knew had something to do with carbon—then why would you be able to smelt steel coins and get steel ingots out?

“M-m-money,” Komachi muttered with a worrying amount of intensity.

If she so much as started to say the word, “Precious,” Sam was taking that coin back.

Immediately.

“Hm, this isn’t cursed, is it?” Sam squinted at the coins suspiciously.

“It is a Dark Vault,” Raiko said dryly.

“You say that like it’s supposed to mean something.”

She shrugged. “At least it wasn’t a mimic?”

Searching himself, he didn’t particularly feel any wealth-based compulsions. If he was cursed, he couldn’t do anything about it now, and he wasn’t going to just throw the currency away based on paranoia.

Shrugging, Sam moved on.

He had some level up notifications come through after the battle, and more after he awoke. With no threats that Sam could see nearby, he went through them one by one.

Level Up!

Your [Fighter] Job has reached Level 8.

+2 Strength | +2 Vigor

+1 Agility

+1 Bonus Point

All right, Sam thought, now we’re getting somewhere.

More stats were always welcomed, and Sam especially relished the extra HP from Vigor.

Clearly still left over from his battle with the [Stellar Warden] were more skill ups.

Your [Rally] Ability has reached (☆ Primitive IV).

Your [Armor Foundation] Skill has reached (☆ Primitive IV).

Not that I’m complaining, Sam thought just in case the Shard could hear him, but I figured I would get a little bit more out of fighting my first proper boss monster. The golem hardly counts!

But that was it as far as skills went. He hardly used his [Power Stance], and he only used [Rally] once, but he hoped it had more to do with the proper application of it rather than the number of times used.

Otherwise, he could simply rest, pop [Rally], rest again, and repeat to power level it. And he seriously doubted the Shard would allow that.

The next notification, however, was not what he was expecting.

You have gained enough Experience to partially unlock your Path (25%).

You have gained enough Experience to partially unlock your Path (50%).

You have gained enough Experience to partially unlock your Path (75%).

You have unlocked your Path!

[Void]

The Void is not to be trifled with. As one of the facets of Apocalypse mana, it should be impossible to wield. But through a series of unlikely events, you have bent fate itself to grant you a lone exception. Contrary to the belief of many civilizations who view the Void as some corrupting influence of great evil, the Void is actually a buffer of absolute nothingness. Its purity knows no equal. The perfect expression of Void Mana is, in essence, the absence of everything else. Its strength lies in raw power and dominion of all else, until naught but the Void reigns supreme.

As a First Order Path, you gain the following Stat Talents per Level Up:

+1 Insight Talent | +1 Strength Talent

+1 Arcane Talent | +1 Vigor Talent

Was that why I didn’t get a truckload of levels for beating something double my level? Did unlocking my Path take that much Experience? I hope it’s worth it.

Sam stared at the notification. “What the hell is a ‘Talent’?” he thought aloud.