Chương 84: Limitless Path Chapter Eighty-Four

"I take it you want this identified?" Jaq asked a little confusedly, eyeing the already opened ration pack.

"Well, I seem to be okay, but Blood and I ate some and I worried they might not be good for us long term. Is there anything wrong with having tons of them?" Beth asked.

"No," he replied simply. When she glared at him for a minute, he sighed and continued, "No, there's nothing wrong with them or eating them long term. They are designed to be fully compatible with a huge range of physiologies, and you should have no problems. The only complaint I know of is that a few people out of a hundred might get the runs if they eat nothing but the bars long term."

"So, they're fine, but there's a low chance I'll shit my pants if I just eat them and nothing else?" Beth asked with a slight smirk.

"Not how I would phrase it, but yes," he replied with a frown.

"If you had several of them yesterday and were fine it is not enough to tell yet, but based on how sturdy you seem to be, I wouldn't really worry."

"What the hell do you mean by 'sturdy'?" Beth asked with air quotes around the last word.

"Would you rather weak, inept, and generally incompetent?" he returned smarmily.

"I would rather neither," she said while crossing her arms with a glare.

"Sometimes in this life we don't actually get a choice," he responded, one hundred percent stoic.

"Can you just look at the next thing?" she asked with a sigh. Jaq grabbed the green box with a frown and popped it open, rummaging through it for a minute before packing it back up.

"Worth about a gold," he said, "but you should keep it. Standard weapon maintenance box, good to have a nice little kit with plenty of functionality in your gear."

"Right, I'll hang on to it," she replied, moving it with the rest of the 'keep' pile. Next, he grabbed the blue box that spat heat when opened. Beth had felt like she was roasting holding it at arms' length, but Jaq opened it directly in front of his own face without a care, not seeming to notice the temperature of the shop spiking. He grabbed one of the glowing objects from within with his bare hands and lifted it out to inspect it.

"Holy hell, how can you just grab that?!" Beth exclaimed, left arm held in front of her face to block off the heat.

"Multi-faceted resistance skill at Diamond level, plus a number of other factors including my raw power being extremely high and this being a low-level item, by universal accounts," he replied calmly, placing the first of the objects back in the box before plucking out the next to examine. Beth took a step back, still holding her arm in front of her face, and waited for him to examine the objects.

He seemed to be taking quite a long time to go through the contents of the box, and a muscle in Beth's jaw bunched as she assumed he was just fucking with her at this point. Finally, he finished the examination and snapped the box closed. He said to her, "Another of those finds that you could do either with, sell or keep. This box has ten lava cores in it, which are not beast cores, but are formed naturally in powerful volcanoes with high levels of ambient mana.

Of course, the usual applies about them being excellent crafting materials, particularly for smiths, but I would buy them for fifty silvers a piece, or five golds total."

"I'll keep them, as long as I don't have to open the damn box for a long time," she muttered grumpily as she stepped back up to the counter before moving the blue box to the 'keep' pile. Jaq picked up the last pouch next with a slightly surprised grunt, opening the drawstring to see the gold inside. He turned the pouch over to unceremoniously dump the gold on the counter, where he deftly arranged it into two neat rows of six bars.

He quickly thumbed through them, giving each a quick turn and glance before looking back to Beth.

"Very high purity mana gold here," he started off saying.

"In terms of actual coinage, I would estimate each of these between one gold twenty silvers and one gold forty silvers, depending on the circumstances and who's buying. You must remember, I am giving you fairly standardized prices for things, and you could get more elsewhere. Of course, elsewhere means off-world right now, and you do not have the funds or strength for that journey quite yet.

If you were to sell, I would pay one gold twenty-five silvers a piece, but they are also rather good materials for your chosen trade."

"I think I have enough gold coins for now," Beth replied reluctantly, moving the gold bars to the 'keep' pile as well.

"One moment, I need to check outside to see if the sun is rising in the west today," Jaq said.

"The hell is that supposed to mean?" she asked, crossing her arms and sticking her lower lip out in a bit of a pout.

"The gold obsessed girl has enough gold, I was going to check if you were a dragon at some point here," he responded with a slight sneer.

"Wait, dragons are real?" Beth asked, eyes widening and an unstoppable grin forming.

"Yes, they are very real, and very powerful," Jaq responded with an eyeroll.

"I would suggest avoiding even the sapient ones, though with how these things go, I imagine you'll stroll in here with one as a life partner at some point." If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Ah, I'm already taken, and I think that's just as likely as pigs flying," she replied sarcastically.

"There is a species of magical boar that can fly at higher levels," Jaq replied with a shrug.

"You must be bored," Beth fired back with a shake of her head.

"Let's just get through the last few things." Jaq picked up the shirts she had purloined and looked them over very quickly.

"Fine tailoring," he said noncommittally.

"Other than that, they are shirts. I don't know what else you expected."

"Not magical shirts?" she asked hopefully.

"No," he replied coldly.

"Oh."

"Now, this is much better," Jaq continued, picking up the odd staff she had found.

"This is made of the heartwood of a red sage oak. The tree is a variant of oak that has an alignment with fire and burning mana, and the wood was worked quite well. The gem at the top is only semi-precious, but it allows for faster, more concentrated casting of ice and water aligned skills and magics. A nice dual fire-ice type item like this would go for at least five golds, possibly a bit more. I'm assuming this is going to that tiny caster you tote around."

"That tiny caster is my sister, whom I love very much, and yes, it's going to her," Beth replied with a very matter-of-fact attitude as she grabbed the staff and added it to the 'keep' pile.

"These, however, are not up to snuff," Jaq continued with a snort, whether at her antics or the potions, she was unsure.

"These are barely above bargain bin level healing potions. They likely won't make you nauseous and woozy when you take them, but they're not going to just pop a chopped off arm right back out of your shoulder joint, either."

"So then how strong are we talking?" she asked as she eyed first the potions and then Jaq somewhat dubiously.

"Severe lacerations and bruising, moderate help in speeding up a broken bone if it is set properly first, and some light help with things like organ or nervous system damage. They are certainly not very high grade, but if you need something that you could slug in the middle of a fight to keep you going, they'll do the job," he replied, before adding under his breath, "Barely."

"I'll definitely keep them," she said, raising a brow at his snootiness when it came to potions, but she moved them to her right into the ever-growing pile.

"Just out of curiosity, how much are they worth?"

"Ah, I would say fifty silvers a piece, if I were in a generous mood," he answered with lowered brow, giving the potions a glare as if they had personally offended him.

"I thought you were an engineer, not an alchemist?" Beth said with a questioning lilt to her voice.

"And I thought you were a meathead, not a busybody," he replied acerbically.

"Mature," she shot back coldly.

"Accurate," he continued in his usual deadpan.

"Fine, fine. What about the bottle of pills?" she asked, trying to keep them on track.

"Alchemist brewed pain pills," he replied simply. Just as she was opening her mouth again to prod him, he continued, "They'll do what they say on the bottle, girl. Just don't take more than the prescribed dose if you need them. And the bottle is about a gold in total."

"Right," she sighed, putting them in with the rest.

"Now, this is a nice little finale," he said, picking up the forging hammer.

"I would tell you to take it to Elana or Tazeen to get their opinion, but it's a solid piece of smithing equipment built to last. The balance seems quite fair, and the runes are for increased force and to impart heat to the impacted area. Have one of the smiths check it and give you feedback before you start using it."

"Right, will do," Beth answered with a nod, adding it to the 'keep' pile before frowning at the jumble. She would have to spend a few minutes to get things packed the way she wanted, and she arranged it so the materials and hammer were at the top. She would run them by Elana or Tazeen first before stashing them in her room. The medicine she put in the first aid kit, as it had some free space for bottles to be stored therein.

The weapon maintenance box she put more towards the bottom of the pack along with the rations. She didn't need the silk shirts for now, so put them in beside the smithing stuff to take out when she made a quick stop at her room.

"Remind me never to go on a long delve with you if that's how you pack," Jaq couldn't refrain from making comments to the side as she finished re-assembling her pack.

"I don't know what's up your butt today but try working it out before anybody else comes in here," she replied a little hotly, her only response a snort as he held his hand out.

"What?"

"Don't try and pull that shit on me, girl. You didn't give me the fifty silvers for the box of sword attachments. Hand it over before you dash out of here."

"Fine, sorry," she replied, not contrite in the least. She dumped a pile of silver coins on the counter before turning and dashing out of the commissary, hearing another snort behind her. Her first task now was to find Elana. If she couldn't locate her smithing instructor, she knew she could find Tazeen in the lobby, so she made her way up to the lounge the Enforcers claimed as theirs first.

Entering from the side door opposite where the girls usually piled in, Beth saw that she was still early enough that the girls had yet to arrive for their day's training. Most of the senior members were in the lobby, and Beth made a beeline for Elana's table.

"Ready for your next lesson?" the mellifluous dwarf asked as Beth stopped before her.

"Sure, but probably not like you're thinking," Beth replied with a slight smile.

"I take it, then, that you have something for me to look at?" asked the smith with a raised brow.

"How do you guys all do that?" Beth asked as her slight smile inverted.

"Do what?" Elana replied, left eyebrow still raised.

"Know what I'm going to say or do before I do," Beth replied as she set her pack down on the table and sat, Blood plonking down next to her.

"I have some things I wanted a second opinion on, since Jaq recommended not selling them."

"I'm listening," Elana said with a nod. Beth proceeded to pull out the frost iron ore and the blue box containing the lava cores. Elana grabbed the ore first and hefted it once before setting it back down, proceeding to open the box and peer at the lava cores before shutting the lid and setting it back down. She turned to Beth and said, "Not bad finds, for sure. Can't recommend you use them anytime soon.

I would hit at least Journeyman before messing with either, and you would likely want to be near Expert before using the lava cores." Beth nodded at the explanation and returned the items to her bag before pulling out the two lesser beast cores and the small pouch of mana gold. Elana briefly examined both cores and the gold before rendering the same verdict as before, that being Beth needed a lot more training before utilizing the materials.

She returned the items to the backpack and pulled out the last item of interest for the smith to look at, the forging hammer. Elana's eyebrows briefly rose again as she took the tool and examined it, giving it a more thorough look than she had any of the other items. She then hefted it and made a few quick, precise swings, as if she was about to hit a piece of metal on the table before her. She didn't actually hit anything, but nodded thoughtfully after the few swings were finished.

"It's a fairly good piece, girl," Elana told her.

"I would say you can use it all the way through Expert level without any need for anything else. Maybe at the high end of Expert you'll want to switch it out or get it rebuilt, but you're definitely covered for a general-purpose hammer for the craft for quite some time."

"Thanks for looking them over," Beth said with a nod and small smile as she tossed the hammer back in her bag, Elana giving a slight frown at her careless packing arrangement. At least, Beth thought it was at her packing and not anything else.

"You ready to do some work today?" asked the dwarf as Beth refastened the latches on her pack.

"Not today, sorry," Beth replied.

"I have to intercept the rest of my group before they get started and give them a few things. After that, I have some stuff to take care of myself."

"Alright, girl, I'll be here," Elana replied.

"Just don't go too long; iron left to lie rusts."

"I'll keep that in mind," Beth answered with a nod before hopping up and walking over to Baelvyr's table, Blood following along after.

"Anythin' good?" he asked by way of greeting.

"Little of this, little of that," Beth answered with a smirk as she sat down, dumping her pack on the table in front of her as Blood sat down beside her. The massive ogre just grunted in response, engrossed in his usual past-time of drinking something suspiciously strong smelling while watching the large screens scattered around the room.