Altair pondered for a moment and said, "I'm afraid I can't help you with this."
"You know I can't risk selling the weapons I've already reproduced at the Twilight Hermit Order."
"So to do you this favor, I'd have to build a new factory. But you also know the industrial standards for firearms."
"More importantly, I can't construct a brand-new plant right under the Augustus Family's nose, hire workers, manufacture arms, and then sell them to hostile nations."
"So I'm truly sorry. If you only need a small number of weapons, I can try to smuggle some out of the factory and give them to you for free."
"But setting up a new plant and selling to enemy forces to provoke a war—I can't help you with that."
After explaining her difficulties, Altair asked with curiosity, "Hmm—why don't you sponsor a special Artisan and let him craft these weapons?"
Adam slowly explained, staring at the glass in his hand, "As I said before, the cost outweighs the gain. From beginning to end, my only demand is to pursue higher-level Beyonder power. Developing technology is too slow."
"There's also the 'tech lockdown.' Over-developing technology will change social structure and the collective subconscious. All of Them believe the current era is just right and doesn't need further progress for the time being."
Altair nodded in agreement. "I understand."
Adam set down his glass and produced two items from nowhere—an ornate box and an egg-sized, semi-transparent crystal.
He then said, "If you accept this commission, I can give you these two Sealed Artifacts as payment."
Ever since Adam placed the two Sealed Artifacts on the table, Altair had been staring at them.
But when she heard they could be hers as payment, her mind instantly cleared.
At that moment, she longed for the Sealed Artifacts yet didn't want to get involved.
After a quarter-hour of silence, the greedy Altair still reached for the two Sealed Artifacts and said, "All right. But I don't think such a small price entitles me to these two artifacts."
"If you have any other requirements, say them now."
Adam was silent for a few seconds, then said:
"Not for the moment."
"Same as last time—when you've fully grown, do me a trivial favor."
Altair's face darkened; half-sighing, half-mocking, she said, "In other words, you think my Sequence rank is too low for the high-stakes game!"
Adam smiled at Altair and offered no reply; the silence itself was the best answer.
Altair felt awful and said to Adam, "Anything else? If not, I need to rest."
"No." But after saying that, Adam added, "Be careful not to keep climbing the tech tree."
With those words, Adam's figure before Altair began to fade.
Once Adam left, Altair looked joyfully at her Sealed Artifacts.
A jewelry box about twenty centimeters long, fifteen wide, ten high, in the Loen aristocratic style with a gold base.
Its surface was covered with delicate, intricate openwork patterns, inlaid with rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and tiny diamonds.
Yet deep within the patterns one could glimpse star-orb and doorway lines that slowly shifted under the light.
By contrast, the other Sealed Artifact looked ordinary: an egg-sized, mostly transparent crystal tinged with faint yellow.
Its peculiarity was the countless tiny gear phantoms floating inside.
What stirred Altair's greed was that her Appraiser ability couldn't fully identify the artifacts; she could only sense that one was space-related and the other related to herself.
Only Sealed Artifacts above sequence six could elude her current appraisal.
After setting the two Sealed Artifacts down, Altair stood up, closed the carriage door, and entered the Spirit World to borrow the library's power to identify them.
jewelry box:
Ability 1: Contains an independent space that can be used alone or swapped with reality.
Ability 2: Can twist and hide a spatial zone; exit is possible only through a specific door or by dispelling the concealment.
Side-effect 1: Bearer suffers the Abraham family curse: hearing whispers at the full moon, leading to gradual mental collapse.
Side-effect 2: Prolonged coverage of an area causes spatial disorder and spatial shards that attack the bearer.
Altair wasn't worried about the first side-effect; the Abraham curse was probably just Mister Door rapping.
The second side-effect made her twitch—she wondered how miserably the previous owner had died; it actually attacked the bearer instead of just causing spatial collapse.
Still, she was satisfied with this artifact; she could leave it in the library instead of covering real-world areas.
Faint-yellow transparent crystal:
Ability 1: Can control mechanical constructs—e.g., automata, machine tools, presses.
Ability 2: Inject spirituality to summon steam-element Warriors.
Ability 3: Temporarily boosts mechanical output, letting ordinary steam engines exceed power limits.
Side-effect 1: Long-term use causes gear phantoms to appear on the skin and makes thinking rigid.
Side-effect 2: Disregard for life and emotion, even performing bodily modifications like replacing flesh with mechanical parts.
Its side-effects were acceptable; using it less than three hours a day posed little danger.
She wasn't sure whether a higher level could extend the safe duration—she could test that later.
After leaving the two Sealed Artifacts in the library, Altair returned to the real world.
Having such a special vault saved her from finding a dedicated containment room for sealing.
Back in reality, she collapsed onto a chair and rubbed her temples with her thumb.
The earlier attempt to appraise two artifacts beyond her level had drained her spirituality almost completely.
At that moment she recalled the last time she'd felt this way—right after becoming a Beyonder; so much time had passed since then.