It had taken a few moments to locate and get to the cave, but not much.

“Do dragons trap their lairs?” Leo asked as the entire group stared at the cave mouth entrance.

“Not where I’m from,” Hugh said.

“Sometimes,” Ru said. “I seriously doubt Zhu did, however. She had a lot of hatchlings going in and out and was lazy as well.”

“Then… this is it? Just go in and grab the loot?” Leo asked.

Ru bobbed his head. “Yes. I think this is everything.” Then he stared at the group. “How are we dividing the loot?”

Leo drummed his fingers against his leg. As much as he wanted to claim the whole thing, he couldn’t deny this was an ‘adventuring’ situation and not an ‘empire’ one. They would have to divide it.

He smiled at Ru. “Well, ‘what we can carry’ will be a lot of it, but normally each person gets one share, and I get a bonus share as group leader. So, with You, me, Lily, Hugh, Neha, Zun, Andul, and my bonus share is a clean ten percent of whatever we haul out.”

Ru nodded. “That’s very fair. Thank you, I thought I might have been excluded.”

“Dad’s always fair,” Neha said seriously.

Leo rubbed the top of her vine hair. “Thanks Sprout.”

He inhaled deeply, still a touch worried about traps, and stepped into the cave.

“You can unpucker your sphincter now,” Hugh said, laughing and tromping past Leo.

“Noted you waited for me to go first.”

“Eh.”

Everyone else followed. It wasn’t even a remotely complicated cave. The main tunnel led to a huge slope down into a massive cavern. Leo could see a huge number of ‘bumps’ on the floor and ceiling, he assumed where the dragon had snaped off stalactites and stalagmites and then worn them down.

But mostly, his eyes were drawn to the huge pile of treasure in the center of the cave. It was the second biggest collection of wealth just sitting somewhere that Leo had ever seen. While it wasn’t nearly as large as the Ash Dragon’s hoard, it was still huge. From here, he could see mostly coins of copper and tons of bronze- and silver-ware, but an occasional weapon or crystal poked through the hoard as well.

“I’ve never felt more dragon than in this moment,” Hugh said.

Leo could feel the deep greed within him—he could do so much with this wealth. “I’ve never felt so dragon either.”

Hugh laughed and Neha snorted.

“We could do so much good,” Lily said, echoing Leo’s thoughts and reminding him he was marrying someone that thought very much like he did about things.

“Well, let’s get to it. Look for anything you can use as gear, and once that’s done, look for what is expensive and can be carried easily.”

Leo flew down to hove above the treasure. His eyes fell on item after item—swords, shields, bracers, armor, the works. He was using a ton of gear considerably below his level, and he hoped he might find some decent items in the dragon’s loot.

Most of the weapons and gear felt like style mashup to Leo. They were mostly western European in basic design, but the flourishes and art style felt both more eastern and more naturalistic, somehow. His eye quickly fell on two swords, each of which had five huge crystals in them—each being worth roughly two hundred and fifty gold from magic crystals alone, probably closer to three hundred once all was said and done. One was a serrated sword with tan and black crystals in the blade—Body and Entropy magic. Blood dripped from the edge of the blade but didn’t seem to pool anywhere, just slowly dissipate.

The other was a hand-and-a-half sword with sky blue and silver crystals in the blade—Air and Eclipse magic. It was black, with a crescent of glowing light along one edge, and occasionally a shadow would shift around it.

Leo analyzed both.

Life Ripper

Advanced Greatest Item. Body and Entropy magic. 6-17 (1-12 physical +5 entropic) damage. Damage dealt is returned as life.

Well, it’s harder to get more evil or more useful than this blade. Every hit to an opponent harms them and takes the life for yourself. On a fast damage and critical focused build such as yourself, it’ll be nearly a full heal every time you aim to murder something.

Although the vampire imagery is a bit Hot Topic for you, isn’t it?

Moonfall

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Advanced Greatest Item. Air, Eclipse, and Light magic. 4-15 (1-12 physical +3 Light). +50% accuracy, +50% critical chance, -30% enemy accuracy, +1 critical modifier.

Heart Seeker can apparently just fuck off. This is that weapon with numbers that have gone brrrr, basically, leaving no niche for your old sword at all. So sad. This blade is guided by the wind and reshapes itself with razor-edged shadows to cripple opponents and defend you.

Heart Seeker may have had bad intentions, but this thing is downright homicidal.

Well, that’s an incredibly difficult decision, Leo thought as he stared at the blades. Half of him was tempted to just take both, but he didn’t want his entire treasure share going to cool weapons—he needed to build his empire and get other gear as well.

The benefits of both were obvious, and for a moment Leo couldn’t decide at all. At the end of the day, he decided that he was leaning most heavily into his hit, dodge, and critical rate, and having all of them go up dramatically was worth more than the incredible life draining abilities. He unclipped Heart Seeker and added it to the treasure hoard, and added Moonfall to his belt.

This is the strongest sword I can get unless I get an artifact, he thought as he stared down at it.

A quick search revealed a shield with a carved cloud dragon and a huge Air crystal in it that added another twenty percent penalty to enemy accuracy, and he took that as well. Against most things he was pretty sure he would be impossible to hit, now, and even for strong on level opponents it would be extraordinarily hard for anyone to land a blow against him.

Neha popped into existence next to him, the displaced air pushing coins around the hoard with a clinking noise. She carried a banner with five foxes intertwined in one hand and a glimmering bracelet with emerald and pink topazes in it in the other.

“Dad, check out what I found!” she squealed in delight.

Leo used analyze.

Five Fox Banner

Advanced Greater Item. Wyld magic. +20% to accuracy and damage for all familiars and bonded companions so long as this item is worn.

An amazing item that benefits familiars and bonded companions? One hundred and ten gold.

The fact it also has a fox design? Priceless.

Greater Bracelet of Familiar Enhancement

Greater Item: +1 levels to all familiars.

Man those foxes are going to be getting some boosts. An actual level for Neha, the banner, and now this bracelet? Crazy.

Not really much to say here, me.

“My foxes will all be level fifteen!” Neha cried out. “I can’t wait to see Remy and Juri and Sumoon when they’re even stronger! And the banner is amazing as well!”

“Very nice!” Leo said. “I was pretty sure we weren’t going to be able to find you familiar-enhancing items. I’m extremely glad I was wrong, and extremely glad it’ll add to your power.”

“I could maybe even get two more,” Neha said. “I have four item slots!”

“Well, keep looking, Sprout.”

She disappeared with a pop of air again.

Leo kept looking around, and a moment later he caught sight of a bracer with a huge Tan crystal in it, stitched with an elephant. He used analyze.

Greatest Bracelet of Toughness

Greatest Item: +5 Toughness

Testosterone has nothing on this bad boy. Slip this on, acclimate over a day or so, and you’ll be twice as hard to kill, near enough. Glass chin to granite with a single piece of fashionable arm

A bit of searching later, Leo found a second one, nearly identical.

“What’s your current Toughness, Lily?” Leo called out.

“Twenty,” she replied.

Leo did the math. That would give her thirty Health, about three times what a person would normally have. If she took both the bracers, she would have thirty Toughness, which would give her sixty health, doubling her current total—and rendering her a lot less likely to be killed.

If she got to thirty-six Toughness, by taking all Toughness at level, she would raise to an eighty-three, one of the groups highest.

“Can I convince you to switch to these two Toughness bracers and, when you level, push Toughness? It’ll very nearly triple your Health pool, and make your survival far, far more likely.”

Lily gave it some thought. “Well, I have mostly trash items—well, by our current standards—from way back when we raided the goblins. I can use two of my three item slots to survive better. But only if you quit trying to leave me out of fights.”

“Fair,” Leo said, deeply relieved. He grabbed the bracers with his Mind magic and floated them over to Lily, who removed her existing necklace and one bracer and put them on.

He rooted around for a bit more, and found a greater Toughness and Strength bracelet, each of which added four to their relevant stats.

Everyone was exclaiming around him, a few even calling out artifact level items they had found or magic shards. It was going to be an amazing haul. But Leo hadn’t found any truly amazing items yet. But as he looked, he saw a glint of gold and green beneath the copper. He reached out and brought the item forth with his telekinesis.

It was a crown of gold with eleven spikes, each of gold with a glowing inlaid pink shard—a Soul magic shard. The gold spikes and band were interwoven with a fine mesh of gold in the shape of a vine with tiny golden leaves formed from emeralds.

Leo’s pulse quickened—this was an artifact level item. He could feel the magic of it even as he held it. It was Soul magic, and it felt overwhelmingly like a magic that wanted to rule and lead, but also one that poured magic into the world.

Leo easily shaped his essence into Mind magic and reached out to caress the crown.

Imperial Crown of the Lost Imperium

Tier-two artifact. +6 Charisma, +6 Capacity, +6 Connection. +100% sill gain rate for all social skills. All allies within 100’ gain essence back at twice the rate. +50% to the effect of all auras as a Soul magic outside modifier. Can exist on a .5 magic weaker realm.

A crown for an amazing, magical ruler of a kingdom, no doubt—perhaps even one summoned from an advanced realm, with advanced abilities.

So probably not you.

But if you do end up taking it… wow. You can only ever have one artifact at a time unless you get a lot better at Metal magic, but this should definitely be in the running. Some increased social skills, which you could desperately need. Better magic. Increased auras for your people. Hell, with this, almost anyone could be a decent king. Lucky for you.

Leo stared at the crown in his hands. “Guys… I think I found the crown for the Kingdom of Averia.”