"What the hell is this?" Flint asked, perplexed.

From the loot chest, he had withdrawn a thin metal plate. About half a foot long, shaped in a long rectangle with an arched top, it wasn't all that large. It was a shade lighter than something made of pure copper and a bit shinier too. Though it lacked the appropriate engravings, Morgana instantly recognized the item just by the color, shape, and embedded grooves trailing down to join at one particular point.

Channels. Channels for funneling mana.

***

Copper Collection Plate.

***

Morgana blinked at the System's inspect message. Clearly, it recognized the item, enough to give a name familiar to Morgana. Yet it lacked a real description? How? Or why?

Regardless, Morgana's excitement grew upon seeing the item. "No way," she said. "I can't believe it."

"What? What is that thing?" Vesper asked.

"It doesn't even have a description," Flint said, mirroring Morgana's thoughts, his brow furrowing as he turned it from side to side. "And is it pure copper? It's heavy."

"An alloy," Morgana said. "Copper, one-third arcanite."

"Arcanite?"

"The cheapest and most abundant of magically conductive metals." She paused. "Though still rare. But not all that so. It's used in most artificing projects. Also in conductive ink."

"Never heard of it." He shrugged. "Then again, I'm not a mage."

"But what is it?" Vesper asked. "The plate, I mean, not the metal."

"It's used for gathering mana." She frowned. "Primordial mana." Since these people had 'System-mana', she had to specify. "But it's incomplete. It's of the proper alloy, and the grooves are present, but the actual collection formula isn't engraved. So I can't use it as-is. Still, this simplifies things so much. I was wondering how much of a headache it was going to be to commission this myself, but it seems I won't have to bother. Just have the formula engraved."

"If it's an alloy of copper and some other rare metal," Flint said. "It'll sell for a lot?"

Morgana paused, then eyed the dark-haired boy warily. Right. Technically, this was a reward that should be split between all three of them. And Flint was right: a thick slab of pure copper and an even more valuable metal was worth a lot of money, easily dwarfing everything else they had earned today in terms of pure value.

"You serious?" Vesper said. "That thing might let her cast spells her class doesn't give her access to. Who cares if it's worth a lot? It's hers. It'll pay us back several times over in the long run, I'm sure." She paused, then looked at Morgana. "I've got that right, yeah? It works like that?"

"Sort of," Morgana said. "It's complicated."

Flint didn't seem convinced. The boy obviously wouldn't mind selling off the plate for an instant, significant profit.

"Sort of? Explain," he said.

While there was an argument that Morgana had done 'most of the work' down in the dungeon, blasting monsters with her empowered [Magic Missile], and thus perhaps was entitled to the collection plate to some degree, she wasn't going to hang that over her teammate's heads.

"Hm," Morgana said. "There are a few things I'll have to go over, to make it clear." She organized her thoughts; she hadn't planned to give an impromptu lesson today. "Those collection plates are just one piece of the puzzle, though perhaps the most expensive, depending on what element you're trying to harvest. Using this plate specifically, I would likely start with fire. Strong destructive potential, and it's extremely easy to set up the ritual."

"The ritual?" Vesper asked warily, and Morgana wondered whether her mind had flicked to their first meeting—where Morgana had needed to rely on blood magic. Even in her own society, drawing on one's own life essence was, while not taboo, still something that unnerved people. So it made sense Vesper wasn't fully comfortable with it either.

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"It's not literally a ritual," Morgana said. "Not like you're thinking. It's just a word we use. Hm. To collect mana, there has to be an ongoing ritual associated with the element you're harvesting. Practically, this just means some active event related to the element. So for fire, well—a fire. Burning next to the collection plate."

"That easy?"

"As I said, I'm choosing the element for its simplicity. It's slow, though. Very slow. You can think of it like dew gathering on a plant over time. Once I inscribe the collection plate with the proper formula, droplets of pure fire mana will appear in the grooves and slide down. You put some kind of container at the bottom, say, a vial, and let the mana gather bit by bit."

"And then you can cast whatever spell you want, with it?"

"That uses fire as an element, yes. And assuming I have sufficient quantity. I'll still need conductive ink, too," she added. "Or I suppose I could keep using my own blood. But that's obviously not preferable."

"You can use blood for more than blood magic?"

"Ink and element types aren't linked. I just happened to be using blood as an element while also using blood as ink. Since that's all I had available. But blood isn't ideal. It has to be fresh, so I'd need to re-draw the spell whenever I want to use it."

"Huh." Vesper's brow furrowed. "What other elements can you use?"

"All of them take practice. But I can use just about anything. My education was thorough. As any archmage's would be." She nodded to concede the point. "Though, specifically, my specialties lie in the gravitational, spatial, and dimensional elements." She hummed to herself. "I dabbled in temporal applications for some time, but, as everyone else, failed to make meaningful progress with it. Temporal mana does exist, so it begs the question why spells of that element refuse to manifest, but…" she trailed off as she saw Vesper's blank expression. "Never mind."

"You can cast dimensional spells? And spatial spells?" Vesper sounded bewildered by her own question.

"Yes," Morgana said simply. "Those are the fields of research that earned me my mantle." She waved her hand. "It's rather irrelevant for the time being, since I won't have access to any of those elements for quite a while. Beyond a copper collection plate being far too inferior to harvest them, the rituals necessary for gathering such elements are…complicated to produce."

Vesper continued to stare at her. So did Flint. Morgana shifted uncomfortably.

"There's different tiers of collection plates?" Vesper finally asked.

"Five, of different alloys. Each composed of one mundane metal, one magically conductive metal. Copper and arcanite are the cheapest. We refer to the plates simply by their mundane metals."

"[Copper Collection Plate]," Flint repeated, reading the item's name out. "Why doesn't it have a description, though? Because it's from wherever you are?"

"That's a great question," Morgana said. "I have no clue."

Flint considered. He eyed the collection plate. "It'll let you cast stronger spells?" he asked finally with a sigh, as if coming to terms with the fact they wouldn't just be selling it off.

"Once I gather sufficient quantities of mana, yes. There are upsides to using the system-granted mana pool, which regenerates independently, but having my own primordial mana would be…incredibly useful. In a variety of ways. While the plate might sell for, well, a decent amount of money, I would much prefer to keep it. It's my path forward on various future goals. The first stepping stone, at least."

Flint grunted. "Whatever. I guess that's fine." He eyed Morgana. "But then that's your cut of the haul, today. We're supposed to be splitting even, but if you need it, you need it. That means me and Vesper get the rest of what we find."

"Understood." Morgana was more than happy with that arrangement.

"She still gets her own cut," Vesper said, annoyed at her brother. "We don't need to be stingy. She's the reason we're blowing through the dungeon, anyway."

Flint grunted in half-agreement. Morgana was unbothered; she understood both sides of the argument. While she was doing the bulk of the work, Vesper and Flint were protecting her, like with the swarming bats, along with identifying traps and generally leading her through the dungeon. They might not be doing much fighting themselves, but Morgana would not want to be down here alone.

"We should start heading back," Flint said. "You said you were getting low on mana?"

"Not dangerously. But yes."

"We have two choices, then. We can backtrack, or keep going."

"Keep going?"

"Or find a boss fight," Vesper chimed in.

Flint eyed her. "No," he said simply. "We won't be doing that."

"How will us 'keep going' take us to the entrance?" Morgana repeated.

"The dungeon will eventually lead us out," Flint said. "If our intent is to leave."

"It will?"

"According to what everyone says. If you're trying to leave, the dungeon will guide you out. Through a different path than the one you entered."

"Oh." Morgana took that in. "How does that work?"

Flint gave her a flat look.

Morgana rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes. You don't know. Still, aren't you curious? Does that mean the dungeon knows what we're thinking, somehow? That it can read our minds? Because how else would it know that we want out?"

"I keep my curiosity to things that have answers," Flint said.

Which was a fair enough response.

"Forward, then," she said. "I have enough mana to last a little while longer. We might as well make a bit more experience on our way out."

"And a bit more coin," Vesper said. "Man, I can't believe how much we've made already. This is crazy."

"Definitely beats picking pockets," Flint grunted. "Besides the whole, maybe-dying part."