Chương 8: Chapter 6 — Apparently, My Starter Necklace Costs $60,000

By the time Jack reached Level Five, Layer Two had stopped being a Dungeon and become a commute. That was not literally true. The Raiders still carried weapons. Firepotters still threw burning clay bottles. Slingers still looked for angles, and the Warden still had enough weight behind its shield to punish anyone stupid enough to stand directly in front of it. The monsters had not changed. Jack had. Three days ago, he had entered Layer Two thinking about survival. Now he thought about route efficiency.

He stepped around a familiar barricade. Three Scrap Goblin Raiders turned toward him. A Slinger stood farther back. Jack kept walking. The first Raider rushed. His new two-handed axe moved once. Gray ash. The second followed. Another swing. Ash. The third tried to circle around his left side. Jack shifted half a step, brought the axe through its new line, and the goblin disappeared before it finished the movement. The Slinger released a sharpened piece of metal. It struck Jack's shoulder plate.

His Life barely moved. Jack did not stop. The Slinger began loading again. It never finished. One overhead strike. Ash. Jack lowered the axe.

"Better." That was approximately the amount of analysis the encounter deserved now. The axe had cost him four hundred and twenty dollars at North Ridge two days earlier. The seller had called it: BIG GOBLIN AXE Jack's Appraisal had been more useful. FORGED SCRAP GREATAXE Rarity: Common Required Level: 5 Physical Damage: 28–40 Average Physical Damage: 34 Weapon Type: Two-Handed Axe Condition: Good No special modifier. No glowing edge. No mysterious Flavor Text. Just a much better Base.

Jack had bought it immediately. The seller had probably thought he made a fantastic deal selling an ugly goblin axe for more than four hundred dollars. Jack had thought the same thing from the other side. Markets were pleasant when both people left satisfied. Another pack appeared farther ahead. Two Raiders. One Firepotter. One Slinger. Jack angled toward the wall, let the melee monsters compress, and waited until the Slinger stepped forward for a better line of sight. The Firepotter lifted its bottle.

Jack activated Cleave. A red arc followed the great axe through the pack. Three goblins disappeared. The Firepotter survived just long enough to look surprised. A normal swing ended it. Mana spent. Seconds saved. Jack checked the corridor beyond them. Empty.

"Commute." He continued. Level Five had arrived the previous afternoon. The System had given him another Passive Point. Jack had already been holding two. This time, he spent all three. Layer Three had answered the question he had been waiting to ask. What did he need next? The answer was uncomplicated. More of what already worked. The Passive Tree was not especially imaginative about naming defensive nodes.

Three different nodes in the nearby Warrior section all carried the same generic label despite having different values. The first: LIFE AND ARMOR Armor +30 Maximum Life +5% The second: LIFE AND ARMOR Armor +10% Maximum Life +4% The third: LIFE AND ARMOR Armor +12% Maximum Life +4% Jack took all three. Boring. Reliable. Correct. His equipment had improved alongside him.

The two Rings he had deliberately left flexible on Day Two had finally done their jobs, and several of the weakest pieces had been replaced and recrafted as better low-level Bases appeared. His current gear carried sixty-nine flat Maximum Life. Jack had also learned enough about the early Level progression to stop treating the final number as mysterious. At Level Five, his base Maximum Life was 112. Equipment added 69. His first flat Life Passive added another 16. That brought the pre-percentage total to 197.

The three newer Life nodes added thirteen percent increased Maximum Life between them. Final Status: 223. Armor followed the same logic. His armor pieces still contributed 85. The first defensive Passive added 20. The new flat node added 30. One hundred thirty-five before multipliers. The other two nodes added twenty-two percent increased Armor. Final Status: 165. Mana was simpler. Fifty-three at Level Two. Six more per Level. Seventy-one at Level Five. Jack opened the full result.

JACK MERCER Level: 5 Job: Warrior Life: 223 / 223 Mana: 71 / 71 Armor: 165 Estimated Physical Damage Reduction: 77% Reference: Standard physical hits from enemies near current Level Fire Resistance: 31% Cold Resistance: 31% Lightning Resistance: 31% Weapon: Forged Scrap Greataxe Average Physical Damage: 34 Skill Gem Slot 1: Cleave — Level 1 Flask Slots: 1. Life Flask 2. Life Flask 3. Empty 4. Empty 5. Empty Portal Scroll: Carried The two Life Flasks he had bought on Day Five were already beginning to feel normal.

That was strange in its own way. A week ago, Jack had been improvising a spear from a kitchen knife because no proper Dungeon equipment market existed. Now he checked two rechargeable healing Flasks and a Portal Scroll before leaving the house. Civilization adapted quickly. So did he. Jack dismissed the Status. The build was not finished. Not remotely. But it had stopped being embarrassing. At Level Two, he had built a framework for surviving. At Level Five, he had something he could farm with.

There was a difference. The Layer Two Warden lasted thirty-seven seconds. Jack knew because he timed it. Not because thirty-seven seconds was particularly impressive. Because five clears earlier, the same fight had taken several minutes. The Warden charged. Jack moved outside the shield. One great-axe strike landed behind the guard. The Warden turned. Cleave caught the exposed side. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Jack stepped away from the return swing. No rush. No bad trade.

Another shield charge. Another opening. The axe came down. The Warden dissolved. Jack stopped the timer. Thirty-seven seconds.

"Acceptable." The first time he had fought the Warden, his problem had been obvious. He could survive. He could not kill it efficiently. Now the Warden had become a loot container with an axe. Jack collected the drops. One Mana Stone. Common gloves. No Skill Gem. No Unique. His eyes moved toward the empty necklace slot in his Status.

"No." Nothing had happened. Jack nodded once.

"Good." He was absolutely not asking the Dungeon for anything. That would be irrational. He was simply aware of the relevant loot table. There was a difference. Probably. Government purchasing had changed the rhythm of farming almost as much as the axe. Before the official programs, loot had possessed value without possessing a reliable price. Now at least one part of the calculation was simple. One ordinary F-rank Mana Stone? Roughly fifty dollars at the government floor. Purity could change the number.

Private buyers could offer more. But fifty was dependable. Jack kept his original reserve. Everything accumulated before government purchasing remained in storage. New Stones were different. Roughly half went into the reserve. Roughly half became cash. Not an exact split. Jack was not cutting Mana Stones in half to satisfy accounting symmetry. Close enough. Mana Stones. Common equipment. Crafting Bases. The occasional Flask. Materials other people were discovering uses for almost every day. Jack sold selectively.

Never the things he remembered becoming dramatically more valuable later. Never anything whose future usefulness exceeded the immediate usefulness of money. But enough. His Dungeon operating fund had climbed to just under six thousand dollars. Not retirement money. Not serious professional Delver money. But enough that buying a four-hundred-dollar axe no longer felt irresponsible. Enough for Crafters. Enough to replace weak equipment. Enough to keep Flasks and Portal Scrolls stocked.

Enough to start making choices instead of improvising with whatever happened to fall on the floor. Jack liked having choices. Then the internet showed him something he could not afford. The post appeared while Jack was eating lunch. His phone buzzed once. Then again. Then five times in less than a minute. GateGuide mentions. Jack put his sandwich down.

"That usually means something went wrong." He opened the first notification. Nothing had gone wrong. This was worse. A photograph filled the screen. A necklace. Not an especially dramatic necklace. A pale metal chain held a smooth, almost translucent pendant no larger than the first joint of Jack's thumb. Soft white light glowed from inside it. The post came from a Delver group operating near a Pennsylvania gate. FIRST UNIQUE DROP??? We killed the floor Boss and this dropped. It says Unique.

@GateGuide PLEASE Jack stared at the image. Recognition came before Appraisal.

"Oh." Of course. He focused. The familiar panel opened. PURE ELEMENT Item Type: Necklace Rarity: Unique Effects All Resistances +5% Maximum Life +40 Grants Level 10 Elemental Shield ELEMENTAL SHIELD Creates an aura around the user. You and nearby allies gain +26% Fire, Cold, and Lightning Resistance. Mana Reservation: 50% of Maximum Mana Flavor Text Kings, heroes, even gods— all began alike with this small light. Do not be afraid. That first step is blessed. Jack read the panel. Then read it again.

Not because he needed to. Because seeing Pure Element on Day Ten felt bizarre. Fifteen years from now, the necklace was famous for an entirely different reason. It was beginner gear. Good beginner gear. Very good beginner gear. But beginner gear. Guilds kept copies for fresh recruits. Academies recommended them to students with enough money. Parents bought one for newly registered Delvers when they could afford it.

Veterans eventually replaced it once their individual equipment could solve Life and Resistance more efficiently. Nobody treated Pure Element like some mythical treasure. Today? Jack looked at the rapidly updating thread. He posted the identification. That made everything worse. WarriorMain: PLUS FORTY LIFE??? RogueMain: FIVE ALL RES IS ALREADY GOOD MageMain: WHAT THE FUCK IS LEVEL TEN ELEMENTAL SHIELD PartyTheory: WAIT THE AURA HITS ALLIES TOO? TankEnjoyer: +26 ALL RES TO THE WHOLE PARTY???

RogueMain: I TAKE BACK EVERYTHING I SAID ABOUT NECKLACES. MageMain: DID NECKLACES DO SOMETHING TO YOU BEFORE TODAY RogueMain: NO. The argument moved rapidly from whether the necklace was good to whether it was absurd. Jack already knew the answer. At this stage? Yes. Maximum Life +40 was enormous for a beginner. Five points to all three elemental Resistances was universally useful. Elemental Shield added another twenty-six points to Fire, Cold and Lightning for the wearer and nearby allies.

Thirty-one Resistance points from one equipment slot. Jack looked at his own Status. 31%. 31%. 31%. On him, Pure Element with Elemental Shield active would take all three to: 62%. Maximum Life: 223 → 263. That was the attractive part. Then came the cost. Elemental Shield reserved fifty percent of Maximum Mana while active. Jack currently had seventy-one. Activating the aura would leave only about half of that available for Cleave and any future Skills. Cleave cost four Mana. That was not a trivial trade.

Jack stared at the necklace again.

"Of course there was a cost." Still worth wanting. Very much worth wanting. But not free power. For a five-person beginner party, the value became even more ridiculous. One necklace could patch a huge portion of the entire group's elemental defenses. Not permanent endgame equipment. Not even close. But for early progression? Fantastic. Another notification appeared. This one came from a news account. FEDERAL DUNGEON MATERIAL PROGRAM ISSUES PROVISIONAL UNIQUE ITEM ACQUISITION OFFER Jack opened it.

The number was near the bottom. PURE ELEMENT — VERIFIED UNIQUE NECKLACE Provisional Federal Acquisition Offer: $60, 000 Jack stared. Then laughed. Not because sixty thousand dollars was too much. Because it was cheap. Painfully cheap. If the government could have purchased thousands of Pure Elements for sixty thousand apiece fifteen years from now, training programs would have bought them by the crate. The problem was supply. One verified Pure Element. Maybe a handful of unreported examples elsewhere.

Millions of new Delvers. Of course the first one commanded sixty thousand dollars. Scarcity was doing what scarcity did. The replies reacted appropriately. LootGoblin: SIXTY THOUSAND DOLLARS??? CareerAdvice: DO NOT QUIT YOUR JOB YET. LootGoblin: I DON'T EVEN HAVE THE NECKLACE. CareerAdvice: GOOD START. PartyTheory: Government offer means private market is going higher. EconomicsNerd: Maybe. Or the government is paying a research premium for the first verified sample. UniqueCollector: I WILL PAY $61, 000.

ActualBanker: With what. UniqueCollector: VISION. Jack closed the thread. Opened his banking app. Then his Dungeon ledger. Available operating cash: A little under six thousand dollars. Pure Element: Sixty thousand. Future knowledge did not create the other fifty-four thousand dollars.

"Unfortunate." Jack took another bite of his sandwich. Chewed. Looked back at the necklace. Fifteen years from now, Pure Element would not stay anywhere near sixty thousand. It dropped from too many low-rank loot pools. Not commonly in absolute terms. It was still Unique. But compared to genuinely rare Unique items, Pure Element was generous. That was part of why it had become iconic beginner gear. Its drop table was broad. Low-rank humanoid Guardians. Several elemental Boss families.

A handful of beginner Layered Dungeons. Goblin lines included. Jack stopped chewing. Slowly, he looked through the kitchen window. The old shed sat at the far end of the yard. Blue light remained hidden behind wood and blackout tarp. Jack looked back at the photograph. Then toward the shed.

"No." He finished the sandwich.

"I am not doing this." Twenty minutes later, Jack was standing inside Layer Three. Purely because he had reached Level Five. That was the reason. Nothing else. The first Scrap Goblin Veteran appeared almost exactly where Jack remembered seeing one during his earlier reconnaissance. Appraisal.

SCRAP GOBLIN VETERAN Level: 5 Threat Rank: F Weapon: Forged Scrap Sword Physical Power: Moderate–High Mobility: Moderate Last time, Jack had looked at the monster from the stairs and asked whether an entire Layer of Level Five enemies made sense at Level Three. It had not. Now the Veteran saw him. Drew its sword. Charged. Jack planted one foot. The greataxe moved. One clean diagonal strike. The Veteran disappeared into ash. Jack remained still for a moment.

"Yes." Question answered. Two Levels mattered. The axe mattered more. His defensive rebuild mattered because he no longer had to reserve half his attention for the consequences of a single mistake. Layer Three had not become easier. Jack had finally caught up to it. He continued. Layer Three had been built around a forge. That became increasingly obvious as Jack moved deeper. Layer Two had scraps. Layer Three had production. Crude production. Goblin production. But organized. Metal braces supported the walls.

Coal-black residue stained the floor. Small side chambers contained anvils, racks, half-finished weapons, piles of slag, and tools Jack would not have trusted within fifty feet of a human workplace inspector. Hammering echoed through the passages. The monsters reflected it. A broad goblin wearing thick leather protection stepped out of one forge chamber carrying a red-hot hammer. Appraisal.

GOBLIN SMITH Level: 5 Threat Rank: F Weapon: Heated Forge Hammer Damage Type: Physical / Fire Physical Power: High Mobility: Low Jack looked at the glowing hammer. Then at his Fire Resistance. 31%.

"Would be nicer at sixty-two." He paused.

"Stop thinking about the necklace." The Smith attacked. Slow. Heavy. The hammer struck the floor where Jack had been standing. Orange sparks scattered. Jack stepped inside the recovery. One axe strike. The Smith survived. Barely. Second strike. Ash. Jack stared at the fading remains. Not quite one hit. Good. Layer Three still deserved attention. Something dropped. Blue glow. Mana Stone. Jack picked it up. No necklace. He put the Stone away.

"I noticed nothing." The next pack included two Veterans and something new. A goblin in lighter armor carried a short metal tube with glowing embers packed behind a projectile. Jack stopped. Appraisal. EMBER SLINGER Level: 5 Threat Rank: F Weapon: Ember Launcher Damage Type: Physical / Fire Jack's eyebrows rose.

"That's new." The device was not a firearm. Not in any useful Earth sense. Dungeon weapon. Dungeon projectile. System-valid ammunition. Exactly the sort of thing humanity would eventually reverse-engineer into proper Dungeon-compatible ranged weapons. The Ember Slinger fired. Jack moved. A glowing shard passed his shoulder and struck the wall. It burst. Fire washed across his back. Life dropped. Not dangerously. Enough to notice. Fire Resistance: 31%. Useful. Not finished.

Jack looked at the two Veterans approaching from the front. Then at the Ember Slinger preparing another shot. He moved toward the melee monsters. Let them close. Cleave. The red arc crossed both Veterans. One disappeared. The second staggered. Jack continued the rotation, using the surviving goblin's body to block the Slinger's line. A normal strike finished it. The Ember Slinger shifted sideways. Fired. Missed. Jack was already moving. It never finished reloading. One hit. Ash. He checked his Life.

Still comfortably above two hundred. Jack looked at the scorch mark across his armor.

"Thirty-one works." Then thought of Pure Element. Sixty-two. Forty extra Life. A party aura. Half his Mana reserved. Jack closed his eyes for half a second.

"This is becoming irritating." Layer Three paid better. Not dramatically. Enough. Mana Stones appeared slightly more often. Weapon Bases improved. Goblin Smiths occasionally dropped forging materials that already had buyers at North Ridge. Jack found a better pair of gloves. Not enough to replace his current pair after modifiers. A Level Five ring. Wrong rolls. A Common helmet. A Flask. No Unique. He stopped at a fork in the corridor and checked the time. Fifty-three minutes. Life was healthy.

One Flask was partially charged. The second was full. Portal Scroll untouched. He could continue. So he did. This was what being ready looked like. Not killing a single Level Five monster to prove he could. Moving through an entire Level Five environment without every encounter becoming an event. Another Veteran. One hit. A Smith. Two. Two Veterans together. Cleave. Ember Slinger behind them. Position. Close. Kill. The route began forming in Jack's head. Left fork contained two forge chambers.

Right path had a long ranged sightline. The central passage probably led toward the Guardian. Probably. Layered Dungeons varied enough that Jack did not assume. He was not rushing the Boss today. There was no need. Another forty minutes of controlled exploration produced several Mana Stones, two useful crafting Bases, and no Unique item. Fatigue had not become dangerous yet. Efficiency had begun to decline. That was enough. Jack turned around. The Dungeon would still be here tomorrow. So would the necklace.

Statistically. Probably. The government bought twelve of Jack's newly farmed Mana Stones that afternoon. Six hundred dollars. The transaction took less than ten minutes. The temporary acquisition office near North Ridge looked considerably more legitimate than the folding-table market had a week earlier. Portable building. Security. Identification equipment. Numbered receipts. A government employee verified each Stone, checked preliminary Purity readings against the office scanner, and processed the transfer.

Jack watched the confirmation appear on his phone. +$600. 00 There it was. Dungeon income. Not theoretical. Not future potential. Cash. The man behind the counter returned Jack's empty transport case.

"You have more?"

"Yes."

"Bringing them later?"

"Maybe." The employee nodded as though he had already heard that answer fifty times that day.

"Prices are provisional."

"I know."

"They can change."

"I know." The man finally looked directly at Jack.

"You've done this before?" Jack paused.

"Once." Technically. The employee accepted that. Jack left. Outside, North Ridge had become almost unrecognizable from Day Two. More tents. Printed price boards. Dedicated gear stalls. Two separate Appraisal businesses advertising different information depths. Three Crafters. Food. A Party board. A handwritten sign near one equipment buyer read: BUYING UNIQUE ITEMS — SERIOUS OFFERS ONLY Below it, someone had taped a printed photograph. Pure Element. Jack stopped.

The offer beneath it read: $45, 000 CASH Jack almost smiled. Forty-five thousand was not a valuation. It was a reseller's bid. Buy immediately at forty-five, then try to capture the fifteen-thousand-dollar gap to the federal offer—or sell it to a private buyer for even more. Perfectly ordinary business. Just with magical necklaces.

"Still no." The man running the booth noticed Jack looking.

"You know what it does?"

"Yes."

"Worth it?" Jack glanced at the forty-five-thousand-dollar offer. Then at the photograph.

"To somebody." The man frowned.

"That doesn't answer the question."

"It answers mine." Jack kept walking. That evening, he updated the notebook. The previous page still contained: CURRENT PLAN Layer 1 — Cleared Layer 2 — Farm Layer 3 — Wait Jack drew a line through the final word. Layer 3 — Active Below it, he added: CURRENT BUILD Level 5 Warrior Life 223 Mana 71 Armor 165 Fire 31% Cold 31% Lightning 31% Two-Handed Axe — Avg.

Physical Damage 34 Cleave — Lv1 Life Flask ×2 Portal Scroll — Yes Then: NEXT Map Layer 3 Find Layer 3 Guardian Keep farming Mana Stones Better Skill Gem Support Gem Do not waste Stones leveling Cleave yet Jack tapped the pen against the page. Stopped. Then added one final heading. TARGET DROP Pure Element He stared at it.

"That is not a plan." The words remained. Jack crossed them out. Waited two seconds. Then wrote them again. TARGET DROP Pure Element"It's a probability." The notebook did not argue. Jack closed it. From the kitchen window, the shed remained dark except for the faintest hint of blue around the frame. Somewhere beneath it, Layer Three waited. Goblin Veterans. Smiths. Ember Slingers. A Guardian he had not reached yet. A loot table Jack remembered well enough to be dangerous.

He glanced once toward the empty necklace slot in his Status. Then toward the shed.

"I'm not asking." Jack paused.

"But I wouldn't complain."