Eventually, he reached the deepest sanctum—a hollow chamber left unfinished by the miners before the fall. It was a circular vault with but a single exit, smaller than the grand halls he had traversed before. Fragments of glowing ore clung to the walls, but they remained unrefined, locked within raw stone. To touch them now, before they were smelted into purity, was an exercise in futility.
Seraph let out a long, ragged exhale. 'Just brilliant... a literal dead end. Just me and a bunch of worthless rocks.'
He leaned against the damp wall, his muscles aching. 'I nearly drowned and got tossed around like a human kite just for some glowing pebbles? My luck really is in the gutter today.'
Yet, as he turned to depart, a sudden shimmer of light caught his gaze.
The radiance emanated from the deepest shadows of the room's far corner. While the surrounding walls were nothing but worthless stone, Seraph sensed something—something fundamentally different—lingering in the dark.
Seraph dropped to his knees in the far corner of the vault. He traced his fingers along the jagged stone until they brushed against a surface of cold, unyielding metal. The texture was utterly distinct from the surrounding rock; it had been interred here with deliberate intent. This was no work of nature—it was an artefact of man.
He reached into the crevice and wrenched the object free. As he pried the mystery from its stone grave, he beckoned The Sphera closer. The brilliant light surged forward, devouring the shadows, and for a heartbeat, Seraph believed he had claimed his first true prize.
A gleaming metallic chest sat before him.
"At last!" Seraph exclaimed, a rare burst of joy breaking through his mask.
The chest was forged of common iron, devoid of any ornate flair, yet the promise of what lay within felt extraordinary. It was secured by a heavy lock, but Seraph gave it no heed. He unleashed a pulse of mageia power that tore through the mechanism with violent celerity. The iron was ancient and brittle; it shattered under the sheer pressure of his will.
With the seal broken, he flung the lid open, his excitement as vibrant as a child discovering a forgotten gift. His hands thrust the metal upward without hesitation—yet no golden radiance spilled forth. No heaps of jewels met his eyes.
Instead, the chest was packed tightly with stone bread. This iron vessel was no hoard of riches; it was merely a cache of emergency rations.
"Cursed Hells!" Seraph roared, the sound echoing his raw frustration. "Light take it! I nearly broke my neck for a box of stale crackers? The Stars must be having a grand old time watching me crawl through this dirt for crumbs."
He felt as though he had been betrayed by the universe itself. The dream of hidden treasure had been a fleeting phantom, shattered by a reality that was as cold-blooded as it was cruel.
The iron chest was packed to the brim with stone bread. This substance was no common loaf, but an emergency ration forged through a specialized process; it appeared as flat, rectangular slabs, their surfaces unyielding and abrasive to the touch. The hue of the stone bread was a somber, dark brown, and the entire surface was punctured with minute holes. In its totality, it resembled a cracker—though one impossibly thick and iron-hard.
Stone Bread was far from ordinary fare. It was a high-grade provision crafted upon the principle of expelling every trace of moisture from the dough. This bread was so resilient that many claimed it could serve as a makeshift hammer or a wedge for a wobbling table. To consume it, one was forced to boil it or submerge it in water; otherwise, one had to keep a fragment in the mouth for an eternity, waiting for saliva to soften the mass enough to be edible.
Stone Bread served as a vital lifeline for many. Because it could be preserved for years without succumbing to rot, these rations were indispensable for long-range maritime voyages and caravans traversing the vast horizons. Even Seraph had partaken of it several times, yet its rigidity had nearly chipped his teeth. It was this singular quality of hardness that earned it the moniker: 'Edible Stone.'
"Wonderful," Seraph muttered, his voice dripping with venomous resentment. "Exquisite. I nearly turned into a human kite for a cache of construction materials. The Stars must be howling with laughter at this absolute farce."
He felt subject to a cruel deception. A sudden urge to kick the chest back into its stone grave surged through him, but his feet were no more formidable than a commoner's. Clad only in old boots, such an act would be a deliberate fracturing of his own bones—a folly far too absurd to entertain.
"Wait... what else lies within?" Seraph's mind sparked with an irrational impulse.
A sensation akin to an unreachable itch plagued his heart. Unable to endure the gnawing suspicion, he began to frantically toss aside the layers of stone bread, the slabs clattering like fallen masonry against the iron floor.
Initially, the upper layers revealed nothing but stone-bread, and Seraph's hope began to wither. Yet, as he cast aside slab after slab, a dim golden glint suddenly pierced the gloom and struck his eyes.
"What's this!" Seraph exclaimed.
The young man frantically clawed away the final pieces of bread that guarded the secret. Beneath the false bottom of the iron chest, a hidden compartment stood revealed. Nestled at the very base lay a nugget of gold as large as a man's fist, concealed with masterful intent at the heart of the cache.
The golden radiance surged, bathing the cavern vault in its glow and catching the silver strands of Seraph's hair until they shimmered with brilliance. Even the light from The Sphera seemed to dim, unable to contend with the luster of the ore. Any interloper who had pried open the chest without scrutiny would have dismissed it as mere rations; none would have suspected it harbored such a prize.
"Goddess's grace... a promising start" Seraph uttered, a small smile playing on his lips.
The gold remained unrefined, its form as twisted and jagged as any raw mineral freshly torn from the earth. It was a crude nugget, yet a mass of such magnitude would undoubtedly fetch dozens of gold coins.
In the world of trade, every minted coin contained a blend of various precious ores; gold coins were simply those forged with a higher concentration of the metal, distinguishing them from lesser currency. Other denominations followed this same logic of composition.
By his estimation, this single nugget could be smelted into approximately fifty gold coins. However, should he sell it to a common merchant, he might only receive ten to thirty; the buyer would have to endure the cost and labor of smelting and refining the ore into legitimate tender—processes that demanded heavy tolls.
Within the coin pouch Seraph had seized from the Kambion Group sat nearly a hundred gold coins. That sum was undeniably greater than the value of this nugget, yet he felt no pride in coin taken from others. Those riches he regarded as nothing but a pittance of compensation.
This raw gold stood as the first asset he had secured through his own prowess. The young man harbored a deep preference for utilizing wealth earned by his own hand over any other.
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