The ship was a monstrosity. There was no other word for it. It was more like a tube with wings than any real ship. Even the other airships around it had the decency to at least look ship-like, and yet there was a perverse charm to it. It was like a middle finger to the world that was ridden by a captain and a crew known for being uncompromising madmen. Laurence thought it was beautiful.

The wood finish was soft and smooth, the curve of the nose was flawless - even at the point where the glass of the windshield intersected with the chassis, and despite how it looked on the outside it was capable of being run by three people but worked optimally with twenty. It was a feat of engineering, design and craftsmanship that Laurence could not help but be impressed with. Only Yun truly understood his fervour, but Laurence’s stoic brother simply watched on as the boy asked a thousand and one questions about every single design choice and whittle stroke. It was not the first time Yun had seen Laurence act this way, but it was the first time he had seen him to this extreme. It was refreshing, and an excellent distinction to the awful way Laurence got after he fought or killed someone.

Seeing the crew come out Laurence waved at Jonas and ushered him over. “Jonas, I have the payment for you in this sack but we might want to go somewhere private so I can tell you what it is.”

This piqued the captain’s interest. Never did he think that Laurence would choose to charter the ship for an artefact rather than the money, but there the boy was implying it was also a powerful one. He ushered everyone on board and then took Laurence to his quarters, to decide if the boy had paid for the journey or not.

“Right then, kiddo, what is your payment that had to be kept secret?”

Laurence closed the door and put the burlap sack on the table. Pulling the coarse material down around the artefact he revealed the chest to the captain. It was a beautiful little chest with metal edging and a lacquered finish, a few gemstones littered the top of the box but they all artfully framed the small black stone in the middle of the lid. Runes were artfully scored into the metal cage that surrounded the box. There were thousands of them, each one representative of a single attribute that would interlink with another glyph to form a characteristic chain which, in turn, would define the power of the little box in front of them both.

“This is a treasure I made.” Said Laurence. The moment he said those six words Jonas frowned and his eyes went wide. Laurence did not realise it but he was going to cause a storm with his existence. “You'll want to bind it with blood, seeing as the mana in your body is insufficient for a spiritual binding. If you just put a couple of drops of blood on the black gemstone in the middle you will have complete control over the item.”

“Hold up, hold up. Kid, you made this?” Interrupted Jonas. If the child was a member of the Hephaistia clan then that knowledge alone would make him a very rich man. Laurence nodded in assent. “Kid... I hate that I'm going to tell you this, but seriously do not mention that you can make artefacts to anyone. Arrays are fine, any one of the six clans can do that, but artefacts?” He paused, rubbing his eyes. “Damn kiddo, just tell me what the chest does.”

“If you insist.” Laurence replied. The way Jonas reacted just now had echoed the way his father had spoken when he first showed his creations. While hiding his creations seemed fundamentally wrong to Laurence, he could see that the people he told were often stunned by the revelation. “Why is it so important I hide that I can make artefacts?”

“Kid, the fact that you can make artefacts means you study the book of creation. This book went missing around eight years ago. For some reason one day every practitioner of the book of creation, every member of the Hephaistia clan, just upped and left. No one knows where they went, but within two months of them all leaving the symbol of the clan had been wiped off the great gateways.” Jonas looked at Laurence, watching to see if he could glean a reaction from his description, but rather than an obvious sense of Laurence trying to hide something all Jonas had gained was Laurence’s rapt attention. “It’s never happened before, not in the thousands of cycles since the creation of the tower. Since then the powers that be that run the tower have paid riches for any information on the Book of Creation or the Hephaistia clan. So, kid, are you a member of the Hephaistia clan?”

“I'm not. My name is Laurence Absolution, and my parents are Angus and Maris Absolution. My father is also known as ‘Bloody Gus’ apparently, the guardian of an entrance to the tower from one of the outer spaces. Yes, I cultivate with the Book of Creation but I may be an Absolution experiment to see if they could gain two books.”

Jonas swore. The gold mine he had found was one with several dragons inside. Unless he was willing to disturb the beasts protecting the hoard then the information the boy just have him was almost entirely worthless. “Alright kid, tell me how the chest works then. What makes it so special?”

“Well, it’s a bit of a complicated creation that works in three parts.” Laurence opened the bottom of the box rather than the top. Inside the base was a very small compartment with a ring of sigils around the base. “The base section here can only be opened by me or the binder of the box. It contains a pocket dimension which is five meters cubed in size and can store any non-living object in it that fits that.” He closed the bottom of the box. Putting a small key in the lock he opened the chest revealing an empty middle. “The key is also special, but I will get onto that after I have finished with the chest. Inside you have a small space to store curios that you want people to know you have. This way anyone who thinks you have a set of gems can look in there and perhaps see some of the smaller gems, but the bigger ones would be hidden away. The book referred to this kind of thing as a facade. Now on to the final part.”

Jonas could not help but gawp at the little box in front of him. It was extremely valuable just from the fact that it contained a stable pocket dimension, but the facade on the front made it an incredibly enticing item. The fact that there was still more within the little box raised its value again and again.

“The real value of the box comes from the black gem on the top. The top half is an access point to an even larger space, one that runs at an hour per second difference. An hour to us will be a second inside the box. The space is twenty five meters squared and chilled because the space I made didn’t have a heat source inside. The bottom half of the gem, the side that is protected by the rest of the case, has a seal upon it which locks it in place. Once again, only I or the binder can move it. So in summary, it’s a box with two storage spaces and a gravitational binding.” He locked the chest again and showed Jonas the key. “This is the bit that makes the chest special. This key is one that binds into the skin, so once you bind it the thing will sink into your skin as a tattoo, like the ones Challengers have. It was where I got the idea actually. Not only does it unlock the chest to keep with the facade, it also has a very small space inside it, one that can only fit the chest inside it.

“After making the space I realised it would have been easier to make a general pocket dimension than the one I did, but I doubt I could have added the special capability in the key.”

“What special capability?”

“The binder of the key can transport the box into its personal dimension at any time, no matter how far away the box is from you or the key. You could even just use the chest as a money pouch and people would be none-the-wiser.”

The more Jonas heard the more he could not believe the item in front of him was a Saint tier item. It was more like one of the mythical Ascendant tier items with a million uses, each one more practical than the last but held in a nondescript ring. “Are you sure this is a Saint tier item?” He said, carefully trying to hide his excitement and shock at what he had been shown.

“Oh yes, the materials I used were bad. If I had Heaven tier gemstones I could have made the spaces contain living things, so you could have carried livestock or used a section as a prison or something. In a story my father read to me once there was a man who was kept imprisoned in a ring for over a hundred years.” Laurence paused, thinking for a second about what he could have done with better materials. Finally a grin lit his face and his eyes brightened. “I could have made the chest into something less gaudy for starters, a ring is the classic pocket dimension holder so I could have made that. I could have made the dimension bigger. I could have also made the time difference, the Book calls it ‘time dilation’, much greater. To the point where a year happens outside while a second goes by in the ring in fact. I wanted to make it flip between slow down and speed up by that increased the power draw by tenfold, even on three or four second differences, so I doubt I can do that without a lot of experimentation but...”

“Enough, please, you've proved your point. The item you've given me is still valuable beyond compare. More than enough to certify us taking you on your journey.” Jonas quickly cut his hand open and placed the bloody palm on the key and the chest. The two of them watched as the blood was absorbed by the objects then as the key sank into Jonas’ skin and the chest disappeared. Smiling he looked back at the boy. “Welcome to the ship, kiddo! I hope you enjoy your journey.”