Ash returned to the small office and the portal disappeared. He looked closer at the belt and found an inscription along the inside.

Lord of the sky, I pray for your blessing and humbly ask the assistance of your noble swans. May their wings shelter me, embrace me, and guard me on my journey.

What Ash had taken for a plain black belt carried a faint design almost like a hologram. It consisted of black swans and seemed impossible to craft into such a soft and pliable belt.

Ash focused on the Notification.

Tring! The Lord of the Sky has gifted you…

Name: Belt of Swans

Quality: Fine

Armor Class: 5

Slots: 3

Weight Reduction: 5%

Durability: 200/200

Effect (Triggered): Swan Lake—once per day walk on water for 2 seconds per Class level.

Restriction: No living entity.

Restriction: 27 cubic feet maximum volume per slot.

Restriction: Range limited to 1 foot per point of Intelligence.

Description: Black belt of softened leather. A very restricted dimensional belt containing three inventory slots and a modest weight reduction.

Ash focused on the lower left corner of his vision and the Inventory icon there. It opened but this time it contained three slots, one of which had a stack of twenty bands. Excitement and adrenaline surged through Ash, and he immediately tried fetching the bands out of the belt.

Twenty bands materialized next to the belt and promptly fell to the floor, clattering loudly and rolling in random directions. Ash dropped to his knees and cursed as he picked them up. He’d gathered three when another idea occurred to him.

The Notification had said the range to store items in the belt was one foot for every point of Intelligence. Two titles added three to Ash’s base intelligence, giving him a range of fifteen feet. Ash concentrated on the three bands in his hand and willed all the bands within range into the belt in his other hand.

The bands around him disappeared, including the ones in his hand, and appeared back in the storage slot. With a grin of success, Ash stood and studied the belt with appreciation.

Ash considered what he’d done wrong and decided it related to not providing a destination with his mental command. He summoned the bands again, but this time willed them onto the desk pushed against the wall. All twenty bands appeared on the desk in a uniform line. Ash excitedly re-summoned the bands, but nothing happened.

Ash had hoped the band around his left wrist would work to summon the others, but maybe it had changed somehow when he’d equipped it. He strode over and touched the first band, and in a blink all of them had returned to inventory.

Next, Ash concentrated on retrieving just one into his left hand. He felt the cold metal against his palm and closed his hand around the band before it could fall. He returned it to inventory and hurried to his backpack.

Ash kept multiple knives in his pack and reached for a throwing blade he kept strapped to the outside of the bag within easy reach. He was lethal if he could reach his target, but many times that wasn’t possible, which required him to learn a ranged attack.

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Considering Ash constantly fought while outnumbered, he couldn’t use anything that caused noise or it would risk bringing enemy reinforcements. That meant no guns. He’d considered a crossbow, but he didn’t want to lug one of those around all the time. Initially, Ash had used throwing stars as the realization he needed a ranged attack had occurred in his ninja phase. Eventually, that had transitioned into the far more practical throwing knives that didn’t require so much accuracy and did far more damage.

Grandpa Pine supported Ash’s teenage fascination with ninjas and convinced Ash that ninjas used chakra magic to perform feats like disappearing. Until lately, those months were the hardest he’d ever worked on his chakras, to the immense joy of his grandpa.

As soon as Ash figured out ninjas did not in fact use chakras, he realized Grandpa Pine had manipulated him, which also ruined ninjas for Ash. Well, mostly ruined them. It was then that he moved from stars to blades. He wasn’t a master with them, but his natural physical abilities along with a little practice made him lethal enough.

Ash paused a few inches from the knife and tried willing it into inventory, but it remained on his bag. He touched it with a finger, and this time when he willed it, the blade disappeared. Checking his inventory, he verified only that single blade had moved, even though he had five more just like it.

That confirmed Ash could choose whether everything inside the functional radius went into inventory or just the item he touched. Next, Ash turned to face the rear wall six feet away. He swung his arm down, willed the blade into his hand, and immediately threw the knife.

The knife struck the cement floor and skittered across the surface. Ash took a step forward to retrieve it when another variation occurred to him. Instead, he turned to his pack and touched one of the identical knives on the bag but willed only the knife resting against the wall to his inventory.

The thrown blade disappeared, but the one on the pack remained. Ash whistled at the ramifications as he removed the blade from the bag. Once he figured out the timing of his throw, he could re-summon the thrown knife by touching one he kept.

Ash whipped his empty hand downward and summoned the blade from his inventory, which he immediately released. This time, the blade struck the wall instead of the floor, although two feet from where he intended.

Five minutes later, Ash could consistently and accurately throw his summoned blade from multiple positions. The wall had suffered dozens of wounds, and he guessed the owner of this office wouldn’t understand or care about Ash’s reasons for ruining it.

Satisfied with the progress, Ash held the belt across his palms and bowed. “Thank you, Lord of the Sky, for this precious gift. I am filled with gratitude for your generosity.” Ash felt a little stupid talking out loud like that, but his grandpa insisted the universe was always listening, and to maintain harmony, Ash must offer his thoughts to the outside world.

Kneeling by the pack, Ash opened the top to retrieve new clothes. He found the small bag his grandpa had slipped into the pack and set it carefully to the side. The picture Bruja had drawn of the disturbing centipede was also in the pack, and he set that next to the bag.

Ash’s boots were at the bottom of the pack, and it took a minute to retrieve them. He also grabbed a pair of jeans, a new T-shirt, and a blue plaid long-sleeved shirt. He stripped down and found clean underwear and socks before quickly dressing in the new clothes. He used the magic belt, and it merged with its other end, solving the mystery of no buckle.

One of the throwing knives slid into a sheath Ash had added to his boot. He pulled his sock down enough that part of the blade touched the side of his leg. He flicked the other blade and heard the satisfying thunk as it skewered the seat of the office chair.

Now for the test. With the blade in Ash’s boot touching his skin, he willed the thrown blade back to inventory. The knife disappeared, and Ash grinned. This was a powerful trump card.

Ash cut a foot long piece of string from the knot he kept and summoned all the bands. He ran the string through them so he could carry them to the captain. He didn’t want to reveal his new magic belt powers until he needed to.

That left Ash two empty slots. He wanted to keep one open for sure because it would make taking something in a hurry possible. Should he place his Glock in the belt or keep two open spots? He didn’t use firearms very often, but he’d practiced enough to get the job done. Sometimes a knife wasn’t enough.

Removing the loaded 9mm from the bag’s built-in holster, Ash willed it into his belt. He spent thirty seconds summoning and dismissing the pistol until he felt comfortable with the process. He only had one empty inventory slot now but had immediate access to his ranged weapons.

Ash picked up his shorts and removed the strange coin that had branded his palm with a now invisible tree tattoo and placed it in a small internal pocket of his pack. He squished his dirty clothes into an outside pocket and forced the sandals down to the bottom of his bag. Lastly, he carefully placed the items from his grandpa and Bruja’s drawing on top, before securing the bag and hefting it on to his back.

Ash had spent too long in the office and would go through the bag his grandpa left him later. He guessed it contained the details of what his grandpa had put off telling him. Ash didn’t want to be rushed or interrupted when he went through those items.

People might already be back in the hangar, and it was time to go. Ash lifted the string of bands and strode toward the door. He needed to tell the captain they had a new destination.