Chapter 12

Keith fixed himself a simple breakfast, then turned his attention to the mythic grade Pocket Dimensions. He removed one from the briefcase and collected it. Feeling optimistic, he opened his Collection Grimoire’s function shop and found a new addition.

Inventory Expansion (1) – 100 million CP

Description: Increases your inventory size by 100 slots.

Keith frowned, finding the function lacking. The price wasn’t the issue. Rather, exchanging a mythic grade Pocket Dimension for a hundred inventory slots was a bad deal, as a Pocket Dimension at that grade had way more storage space. Even then, Keith’s instincts told him it wasn’t so simple, as thus far, every function had a use.

Pondering, Keith recalled a feature of inventories: the items stored inside left no physical trace in the world. Contrarily, since you couldn’t put spatial-type items like Pocket Dimensions in your inventory, you always had to carry them on your person or find a secure location to store them.

In the Innate Nation, concern over robbery was non-existent, so Keith almost overlooked this difference. Only when he shifted his perspective to that of someone used to the Grandsky Realm, where robbery ran rampant, did he consider this advantage.

And that depressed him.

Just last night, Keith was excited about exploring the Grandsky Realm, having painted a picture of growth and discovery, conveniently forgetting that here, theft, murder, and conflict were all too common.

Suddenly, the memories of the slave camp he encountered came to mind, splashing blotches of black ink over his beautiful image.

Then it clicked.

Keith had often listened to his Father’s long-winded speeches about morality, justice, duty, and society, unable to understand why he and many others cared so much.

Now, he did.

It was a dream.

To Keith, the Grandsky Realm was a world full of adventure, and for others to sully it, to warp it beyond recognition, filled him with revulsion. Markus wanted to make his dream a reality, which required cleansing the ink stains from his painting. Keith wasn’t willing to do that. Or at least, he hadn’t reached that point. Keith wanted to avoid confrontation, not seek it out.

Lost in thought, Keith didn’t sense Adeiv’s presence until the latter knocked on the front door. Keith snapped to attention, his face lighting up as he went over and brought Adeiv inside.

Upon entering, Adeiv waved his hand, revealing a rare grade Pocket Dimension clasped between two fingers. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” Keith grinned as he took the Pocket Dimension and willed it to open. When the portal appeared, Keith entered, hoping the blacksmith had faithfully adapted his vision from the few drawings he sent over. Since this would be Keith’s first ancient grade armor set, he wanted it to stand out.

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Arriving inside the small Pocket Dimension, he looked ahead and found two mannequins covered in resplendent armor standing at attention.

Each armor set had three layers – plate, leather, and cloth. The innermost layer was cloth, while the leather filled the gaps between the outer layer of plate pieces. Of course, while the words sounded commonplace, the materials were anything but. Although Keith couldn’t recognize them, the order stated that each material was ancient grade.

To fulfill Keith’s request, the blacksmith dyed and enchanted each layer differently.

The set on the left had silver cloth, white leather, and a deep blue plate. Even better, the cloth had a faint glow while the plate rippled as if waves ran across its surface, reminiscent of Keith’s natural hair.

If the set on the left represented light, then the set on the right represented darkness. Every groove and curve was the same, except for the colors and visual enchantments. The cloth was a murky grey, the leather a deep red, and the plate black as night. The plate had the effect of absorbing any nearby light, turning it even darker.

As the two armor sets reflected themselves in Keith’s pupils, he gasped, “Awesome!”

Without hesitation, Keith teleported to their side and began fondling here and there, leaving nothing untouched. He was so delighted he kept muttering ‘So cool,’ unable to find other words to describe his joy.

A moment later, Adeiv appeared at the portal and grimaced upon witnessing the bombastic armor sets, thinking how outlandish they were. Wasn’t armor like that painting a target on your back?

Walking over to Keith, Adeiv asked, “I’ve been wondering why you got two sets?”

“Simple,” Keith answered, sending Adeiv a notification panel with a flick of his finger.

Battle Loadout

Description: Automatically swap to different loadouts you’ve unlocked depending on the type of attack received. Low mana cost. No cooldown.

“What the…” Adeiv was startled by what he read.

“I can only afford two loadouts at the moment, so I decided on a generic magic resistance set and a generic physical resistance set,” Keith sighed when he recalled how pricey the third loadout was to unlock – a whopping trillion CP. His dream of getting a loadout for every damage type was far away.

When Keith started putting on the magic resistance set, Adeiv fell silent.

For the first time, Adeiv felt the massive differences there could be between innate gifts. Innate gifts usually specialized in one aspect, while Keith’s seemed to be going in every direction it could.

However, just as Adeiv started lamenting about the unfairness in the world, he thought himself hypocritical. His contracting innate gift was no slouch either, especially his latest unlock, the power to contract people’s talent. Using that new function, Adeiv had leveled his skills by the hundreds and acquired a dozen legacy skills in the past few months.

“Well? How do I look?” Keith asked as he posed heroically in front of Adeiv with a smug expression plastered on his face.

Adeiv looked Keith up and down before nodding. “Not bad. It matches you.”

Keith chuckled and looked down at himself. “I’ll call this set Spell Breaker and that one Fist Breaker.”

Keeping quiet, Adeiv wondered whether he should find a writer to contract their creativity skills to Keith. On second thought, Adeiv felt he was being too judgemental. He rather envied Keith’s optimism and carefree attitude. It was too hard for Adeiv to find happiness recently, no thanks to the pressure from the other dimensions.

Keith opened his status panel and exclaimed, “Wow, my health shot up by 500,000. I got about 5,000 bonus stats, too.”

If an ancient grade equipment set gave Keith so many stats, he couldn’t imagine what a transcendent grade set would give. It would probably make someone invincible.

Adeiv looked at his watch and realized his next appointment was coming up. “I gotta go. Contact me if you need anything.”

“Thanks again!” Keith called out as Adeiv walked through the portal.

Now that he was alone, Keith slowly calmed down. He collected both armor sets, opened the Battle Loadout function, and configured its settings. After making the Spell Breaker set his default set, it appeared on his body in a flash. Inspecting himself once more, Keith felt confidence welling up inside.

It was time to head to Typhoon Beach.