God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.-Chapter 1156: Striking it RiChapter

The journey back down was significantly more terrifying than Cain had expected.

Still, they had somehow managed to live through it. That was quite impressive. That was where the disadvantage of having a frail body really came through. If his body was not so affected, even the Chaos Ether would not have been so scary to him.

Either way, they had touched down relatively close to the camp without incident, although it would take quite a bit if they had to walk back. So Cain simply summoned Ruby and mounted her.

As the Mutant Bear cut through the desolation leaving behind enormous dust dragons, Cain snuck a look into his inventory full of enough resources to make a dwarf weep bitterly in jealousy and envy.

Upon Ruby’s back, he turned to Steve. The mage looked windswept and slightly manic, his hair still sticking up at odd angles and his goggle askew.

The look in his eyes were rather fervent,

"It’s incredible... I was only able to get an idea of it, but even that much was just... I see. That’s incredible..."

"Steve."

"— and don’t even get me started on the features. Perhaps we can apply them to present runic theory to— No! Such a thing cannot possibly be, right?!"

"Steve."

He finally looked up. "Yes?"

Cain pursed his lips and cleared his throat,

"We need to talk about what we’re going to do with all this stuff. To tell you the truth, I have much more than I could possibly need."

"Oh. Right." Steve adjusted his glasses. "How much did you actually gather?"

Cain pulled up his inventory interface. There were numerous spatial items within it that had been packed full. It was insane.

"Fuck me," Cain muttered.

"That much?" Steve raised a brow.

"That’s... at least ten times what I need. Maybe even more." Cain did some quick mental math.

Steve let out a low whistle. "That’s a lot."

"That’s way too many." Cain rubbed his temples, suddenly aware of just how exhausted he was.

"I don’t need that many at the moment. Nobody needs that many. But seeing as they will be a rarity, should I hoard them? What the hell am I supposed to do with all this excess?"

They sat there for a moment,

"You could sell them," Steve suggested finally.

Cain blinked. "What?"

"Sell them. Or trade them. You’ve got Gilead and his Pilgrims here, Alvi and the Beastmen, even Lukas and his Lightslayers. All of them could probably benefit from higher-quality weapons."

Steve warmed to the idea as he spoke. "And let’s be honest... with the quality of the materials, the weapons themselves are sure to be outstanding. Who wouldn’t want some of that?"

"Sell them," Cain repeated, turning the idea over in his mind.

It wasn’t a bad thought, actually. The materials were abundant here in the Graveyard of Stars, but once they left this trial universe, access would disappear. Which meant anything he forged here would be unique and mostly irreplaceable.

Limited supply and high quality. That was basically the definition of valuable.

"The Pilgrims would definitely be interested," Cain mused. "Gilead’s been trying to rebuild their combat capabilities since the whole Balangol situation. And proper weapons would go a long way toward that."

"Alvi’s too," Steve added. "Most of them are still using whatever they can get from the system as the blacksmiths in Valestorm aren’t exactly masters of the craft. High-grade weapons would significantly increase their effectiveness."

The more Cain thought about it, the more sense it made. He’d forge the thousand blades he needed for his spell evolution. Then he’d use the excess materials to create weapons for his allies. Strengthen the overall fighting force while making some profit on the side.

A win-win situation if he had ever seen one.

"Alright," Cain decided. "Let’s do it. I’ll focus on getting my {Stellar Razors} finished first, then we’ll see about creating a variety of weapons for the others. Swords, spears, axes... whatever the people need."

Steve rubbed his palms together greedily,

"Now of course, we can’t forget the pricing. Quality is quality, after all. It’s only fair that we do this properly after all."

Cain chuckled darkly, "I was thinking the exact same thing."

The two guffawed as they considered the numerous ways they could execute near criminal extortion.

After all, the materials might be abundant, but the labor wasn’t. Each blade took hours of careful hardwork. And he was the only one who knew how to properly treat the Chaos Ether for now. Since his understanding would evolve further, perhaps the quality of what he could make would even rise as well.

Ruby continued riding into the distance until the sight of tents forced her to slow down until she eventually came to a halt.

Cain and Steve got off before he sent her back into the subspace.

Steve cleared his throat,

"So..."

Cain chuckled. A storage ring appeared in his handw which he casually tossed at the greedy looking Steve.

Steve caught it eagerly and spent some time skimming through the contents of the ring. A satisfied appeared on his face. Then he cleared his throat,

"As expected of boss Cain. Always looking out for his underlings. I should get going. I have a lot of things to attend to!"

"You do that." Cain waved him off.

Steve hurried off toward his tent while muttering under his breath.

Cain took a moment to just stand there, letting the exhaustion wash over him.

His essence and spirit had been tested greatly. Sure, it had not been a battle. However, it was just as, if not more stressful than one, especially when even the slightest craze could have led to his death, or worse.

Still, he was a bit happy. Because it had let him come to terms with a lot of his current limitations.

Suddenly, he was eager to break through to be done with the trial the system had given him. When it was done, would he be given an indomitable body or an indomitable spirit?

For now, it would remain a mystery.

"I have work to do..."