But before I exit this rift and take a few days off, I’m going to check out my rewards. Elijah couldn’t help but feel excited despite being exhausted by the delve while his eyes rested on the small, golden chest sitting on the ground near the exit.
Chapter Begin
“Ouch,” Elijah groaned with each step because of the pain over his whole body. Thanks god, I have such a high constitution. It allows me to take more hits. He stood before the golden chest and reached out to open it. If I hadn’t invested that heavily in strength before I would never have been able to fight the rift boss. Even at this low tier, the extra constitution I got is an amazing bonus, I would otherwise have been defeated by much fewer attacks.
He pushed at the small latch and the lid of the chest opened with a click to reveal Elijah’s well-deserved rewards. He crouched down to pick up the items inside. The first reward he noticed was the essence stones they had received from the other Tier 2 rift he had delved into with Aric and the others. Elijah picked an essence stone up and turned it around in his hand. It had a milky-white color and reminded Elijah of glass but he got the feeling that it was a lot sturdier than glass. He hadn’t noticed before but when he looked closer, he could see the essence inside the stone swirl around. The sight distracted him for a moment before he put the tennis ball-sized stones into his pouch. I’m going to sell these later.
After stowing that part of the reward away, Elijah looked at a flask inside the chest. The glass was designed in a way that reminded Elijah of a muscular arm but instead of a fist, it ended in a cork lid. The liquid was green in color with a few blobs of red color floating around inside and Elijah assumed that it was a potion that increased strength when consumed. He considered putting the potion inside the same pouch as the essence stones but decided against it as he didn’t want to risk breaking it. Another idea came to his mind but he postponed it to look at the last reward.
A skill.
With a grin, Elijah picked up the fist-sized bead which he had recognized as a skill shard. Here comes the main prize. Is there any way to tell which skill that is? Elijah didn’t know why but he had the feeling that the skill had something to do with movement. He had the same gut feeling about the other two skills when he held them and already suspected that they were offense-oriented skills. It was extremely tempting to absorb the new skill on the spot but Elijah put the shard away. I have to ask someone about it later.
Instead, he turned around and walked toward a piece of wood that was about the size he would need for his idea. He picked it up and watched as it transformed, following his command. First, Elijah concentrated on creating a flat circle. The wood formed into a crude disc before Elijah pulled different parts of the disc upward with two fingers, forming several grids from the flat circle, which he united at the top and shaped so that he could attach the small container to his clothes. The construct resembled his hand in size, only a few inches high, and a fitting container for the potion from his rewards. Even if it’s not a potion, I wouldn’t want to break it.
Timber was waiting the whole time, lying around in its serpentine form and watching its creator collect the rewards. A few parts of the minion’s body took damage during the fight and Elijah used the surrounding wood to fix it before he split Timber’s body into two halves and resummoned Root. After shaking his head, he decreased the size of both minions to a foot as he didn’t want to walk around with two wooden serpents slithering after him.
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He picked up Root and placed the minion around his neck while Timber took its place under Elijah’s loose shirt. His clothes had taken a lot of damage during the delve and got teared up in a few places but as Isabella had told him, they had a self-repair function ingrained which protected Elijah from walking out of the rift barely clothed. After waiting for his clothes to repair themselves, to provide better cover for Timber under his shirt, and to regenerate some of his stamina and mana, Elijah took a last look at the boss room before he stepped through the exit.
The same guards clad in blood-red armor as before stood around the rift but this time Elijah got a reaction out of them.
“Still living?” One of the guards asked in a surprised tone while the other guard raised an eyebrow.
“As you can see,” Elijah answered, “but I rested several times inside.”
“We assumed you were dead. Most delvers clear the rift much faster, but in hindsight, that was to be expected, considering you were alone,” the other guard spoke up as well before he pointed with his spear down the hall. “We must ask you to leave now.”
Elijah simply nodded before he walked down the extended hall. Did they copy the rift’s design? He wondered as he looked at the dozens of torches hanging around him. The wooden doors leading into the next room answered Elijah’s question as they had the same design as the gate leading to the boss room inside the rift. He left the last guards behind as he walked through several rooms before arriving at the main room.
After asking a member of the Eternal Flames guild where he could sell essence stones from the rift, he was forwarded to a booth that stood in one of the rooms connected to the main hall of the guild headquarters. Elijah didn’t intend to sell his essence stones here as the guild would probably be able to afford to pay less for the rewards people got from their rift. The vendor noticed Elijah’s intention to simply learn the prices after he had already asked about the essence stones and the potion which turned out to be a Giant’s Strength potion.
He would sell the essence stones but decided to keep the potion for himself. Leaving the miffed salesman and the headquarters behind, Elijah walked out of the building and began wandering around the city. He had asked Junip through his Nexus Watch if he knew a place where he could sell things without getting pulled over the table. Elijah used the time to eat something and get his clothes cleaned for fifty credits before Junip’s answer came.
His friend sent him a list of a few shops with a note to each one which showed up in front of Elijah like his status screen. He could open and close the list with a thought. Junip was also thoughtful enough to add the approximate prices for the usual rewards from the rift.
A Tier 2 essence stone goes for around 4,000 credits while the Giant’s Strength potion is worth around the same. The worth of skill shards is determined individually but the lowest skill costs at least a whopping 20,000 credits. Junip included a lot more items on the list but Elijah skimmed over them before he closed the note and went to the shop at the top of Junip’s recommendations.
According to Junip’s note on Starfall, it was a trading company that had a branch in many cities, even in Whisperwind. Elijah wasn’t sure but he thought that he remembered the yellow logo of Starfall from a shop he had walked past in Whisperwind. The Starfall store was one of many in a row of shops in the business street of Ravenholm but stood out because of the higher amount of customers walking in and out of the shop as well as the yellowish hue the building had.
“Welcome to Starfall, guiding your dreams, one starfall at a time. How may we help you?” A staff member, a young woman in a yellow shirt and shorts greeted Elijah as he entered the store. The shop was filled with all kinds of things. Elijah spotted a corner with potions locked behind glass containers, weapons, and other tools spread around on shelves, and ropes of different lengths hanging on hooks. The store offered everything delvers could possibly need and more.
“I want to sell essence stones,” Elijah answered before he was directed to the counter where another woman in the same clothes but taller than her colleague stood. He presented the essence stones and told her that Junip recommended the store. The woman’s mood brightened when she heard Junip’s name and she offered 4,000 credits per stone. Hearing the amount, Elijah didn’t even try to haggle and accepted the price. Minutes later he walked out of the shop with 20,000 credits in his pockets and made his way to the guild headquarters. He was going to buy more rift slots.