Chapter 69

The first thing I did was find the craftsmen and instruct them to start turning the dungeon cores into various forms of jewelry, smaller ones were turned into rings, and midsized ones were turned into bracelets and chokers, while the largest were turned into pendants.

After I was done with that I decided to check out the treasury, to get a better understanding of the resources that was contained within. I found everything was well organized, everything organized into a couple of difrent groups, with each group further separated. The largest groups were metals and parts of creatures, another mentionable group was gemstones. There were a lot of weapons but most of them were almost completely useless, it is possible to process this stuff to make some great gear, but we currently don’t have someone with the necessary skills to do so, a problem that will have to be amended if we want to continue to profit from dungeon diving.

After a brief glance of the resources it seems that cath’s estimate on the value of everything here is pretty accurate. While I was passing the gemstones I noticed something that caught my eye, a sizable pile of soul stones, reaching up to my waste. Normally they are useless unless you are either an enchanter, soul mage, or mind mage, of course you can eat them, but that is a huge waste of money as I recently found out, the amount money that you can get for selling one can be used for other, much more effective methods to increase your power. seeing so many in one place is a rarity, of course most of them are very small, about the size of my pinky nail. There are a couple of larger sizes but not many. I turn towards the guard that was instructed to escort me, useless for defense as I am significantly stronger than him but he is a good source of information.

“How did you get a hold of so many soul stones, they aren’t exactly common.” Jack

“We usually get at least one from every full dive, regardless of if we take out the core or not. Usually get more when we also get the core.” Guard

“Can you call either Mathew or cath, either one will do.” Jack

“Certainly” guard

I only have to wait for roughly ten minutes before Mathew shows up. He sends the guard away before looking too me.

“So you called for me?” Mathew

“I am willing to help you dispose of your collection of soul stones.” Jack

“And how would you do that” Mathew

“I am willing to reach into my personal finances to purchase them in bulk, I can’t offer as much as if you were to sell them individually but I doubt there will be another buyer for a while.” Jack

“they’re not doing much just sitting here, so take them.” Mathew

I pull out several decent quality weapons and armors that I have collected through the years as well as several thousand jaers, a total value of about two thirds of retail value of the soul stones.

“this is an acceptable trade, definitely much more useful, if that is all I will be leaving.” Mathew

“yeah, if you get ahold of any more I will buy them for personal use.” Jack

I collect my soul stones as Mathew leaves and head to the room that was provided to me. I have some ideas for how to use them.

The first thing I do is sit down and observe one of the smaller stones, I feel like something is off with them. I continue to observe them for several hours only to be interrupted by a maid calling me too dinner. I feel like I have made a small amount of progress, but not quite enough.

I go down to dinner where Mathew, his wife and kids, and Cath are already gathered.

“I’m telling you, if we hit that group of dungeons we will be open for an attack, just like last time, we should take out a few more dungeons first.” Mathew

“I agree, but these four dungeons should be a priority target, they are the biggest threat to us.” Cath

“Which would make them the ones that have to greatest potential to benefit us.” Jack

“Ah, Jack, I wasn’t sure if you would be joining us, so we started without you.” Mathew’s wife

“It’s fine, as I was saying, with dungeons, as you no doubt know already, the strong they are the more profit you can gain from them. If those four dungeons are the strongest around here then you should keep them alive, don’t leave them alone, instead use them as a training ground for more elite soldiers. That should keep them suppressed enough so they are not a threat.” Jack

The two brothers give me a thoughtful look before nodding to each other.

“That should work.” Mathew

I sit down and as a maid places a dish, something that looks suspiciously like kraken soup.

“Is this kraken?” jack

“Yes, it was a floor boss of a water themed dungeon that was cleared the other day.” Maid

“Not bad, this is quite the delicacy in many places.” Jack

“we have plenty of food to go around, and there is no way we would be able to sell this stuff before it could spoil, and preserving it takes more resources than we could get from selling it, so might as well eat it ourselves. The team that brought it back got their due reward.” Cath

The oldest child, who until then had been talking with the other kids, turned to me to ask a question.

“Can you show us some magic?” oldest

At this the other children’s eyes light up.

“Please, please, please.” Younger children

“they have been wanting to see some magic for a while now, when they heard you were here they last time they begged me to let them see you so they could beg to see some magic but you had already left.” Mathew

“Alright, alright. I guess I can show you a few tricks” jack

“yay!” all children

For the remainder of the meal I show the children some simple magic, and even managed to teach them a few, namely basic healing and creating small lights. Mathew and his wife were happy with the chance to take a break for themselves, not that I blame them, between kids and work they must not have much free time.

When they kids went to bed, around 6, I decided to retire to my room myself. Once in my room I pulled out a different, small soul stone. This time I decided to compare it to my own soul. On the surface it appeared pretty normal, yes there were differences, but not to the level that it was surprising, all souls have some differences when compared to each other. It wasn’t until I looked deeper into the soul that I started to notice something, I feel like the difference is right under my nose. It wasn’t until around midnight that I managed to figure it out, the soul stone had no core, while my mind and soul both had a core, upon further observation of those cores they seemed to be linked in a way that would be impossible to break. I decide to avoid experimenting on myself with this core as I have no idea what could happen if I do something stupid with it. I put the soul stone back in my inventory and decide to get some sleep, it has been a couple days since I have slept after all.

End chapter 69