Chapter 699 Four Pillars: Grand Haul
"Ugh..."
"What the hell happened...?"
Supporting his head with one hand, Valyr slowly came to his senses as he sat up straight, feeling a massive headache as he did so.
Taking in a few deep breaths to hopefully subside the pain he felt, the young man then looked around his surroundings, soon recalling everything that had transpired.
"Ah, right."
"I obtained the Shard of Defiance."
As he said those words, a wry smile appeared on his face.
After all, rather than the shard being stored in one of his spatial bracelets, the Shard of Defiance was instead stored...
Inside him.
Continuing to let his mind recover from what had just happened, Valyr briefly recalled what happened after he retracted his mana from the Shard of Defiance.
...
Whoosh!
"Huh?" Noticing that the shard had come along with the mana he had retracted, Valyr's expression swiftly turned into smiles as he thought that he had successfully bagged the item.
Though, just as he was manipulating the mana in a way that redirected the Shard of Defiance towards one of his spatial bracelets...
The Shard of Defiance decided to head towards another path.
Swoosh!
"Aaaagghh!!!"
With Valyr caught unaware, the shard swiftly headed straight for Valyr's forehead, utilizing its sharp edges to try and embed itself into his body.
Of course, at the very instant that occurred, great waves of pain started to radiate from his forehead as he clutched his head from the pain.
Yet, no matter how hard he clutched onto his head, the pain brought about by the shard embedding itself never ended.
At that point, Valyr even began to wonder whether obtaining the Shard of Defiance was a blessing or a curse.
Though, with how the shard gave him access to what looked like a strong hidden stat, Valyr continued to persist.
Gritting his teeth tighter and tighter the deeper the shard embedded itself, Valyr eventually couldn't take it anymore, blacking out by the time the shard was only halfway through.
...
"I guess it's on my forehead right now?"
Faintly shuddering at the thought of what happened, Valyr touched his forehead for a bit, only to pick up the blood that dripped from his forehead earlier.
Of course, with how much time had passed, the blood had more or less dried up into something powder-like.
Rubbing off the dried blood from his forehead, the young man continued to touch his forehead some more, only for his expression to turn into that of confusion.
"Where'd it go?"
Frowning as he thought that the Shard of Defiance had disappeared, Valyr went silent for a bit as he wracked his brain to come up with all sorts of ideas.n)(0Velb1n
Eventually, thanks to a sudden burst of inspiration, he decided to take a look at himself internally, focusing his attention towards his mind.
"What the..."
Staring at what more or less made up his mind, the young man inwardly let out a sigh of relief after seeing that his mind was more or less unscathed.
However, orbiting around what made up his mind seemed to be a shard-like object that contained a gateway to another space.
"The Shard of Defiance..." Realizing that the object orbiting his mind was the item that he had obtained earlier, the young man was left at a complete loss for words as to how the situation had gotten to this point.
In the end, he decided not to think further regarding the matter, considering how it would be absurd for him to tell others that there was an item orbiting around his mind.
"Well, at the very least, I got it rather than have it stay here."
Letting out a low sigh as he bitterly smiled, Valyr stood up and rubbed the remaining remnants of blood on his forehead before cleaning his face with a swift water spell.
Then, after checking the other parts of the small area he was in to see if it was hiding anything else, Valyr began to head back through where he came from.
Conjuring yet another small flame as he made his way back, the young man felt as if he had taken less time to return from the area compared to when he headed towards the area by the time he arrived at the entrance.
Faintly shrugging his shoulders at the peculiar feeling, Valyr stared at the entrance for a bit before shifting his attention towards the shelves that made up the deepest part of the Enlightenment Material Cache.
With a greed-filled grin adorning his face, Valyr began to store all of the precious materials he could see within his spatial bracelet, thankful for the fact that the spatial bracelet he had picked up had a lot of space.
In fact, while he was in the midst of storing everything he considered valuable into his spatial bracelet, a thought popped up into the young man's mind.
'If the Gates of Enlightenment's material cache already contains items like Crystallized Arcane Essence and Elder Wyvern Scales, then doesn't that mean the Gates of Awakening would have a far more valuable material cache?'
Continuing his train of thought, the young man began to chuckle.
'What about the Gates of Transcendence? What would their material cache look like? With how the Gates of Enlightenment has Elder Wyvern Scales, would their material cache have access to all of the parts making up a True Dragon?'
'Perhaps I could even get my hands on some parts of an Elder Dragon?'
Grinning at the frivolous thoughts he had come up, Valyr proceeded to store everything he could see on the shelves into his spatial bracelet.
Though, with him being a blacksmith, he skipped over all of the equipment on display, as well as most of the alchemical stuff that he could see on the shelves.
After all, what he could forge in his current state was far better than any of the equipment displayed here.
Eventually, after storing a bunch of dry goods and imperishable foods near the entrance of the material cache, Valyr looked at the shelves in satisfaction.
With how thorough the young man was in storing items, it went without saying that the shelves of the Enlightenment Material Cache now looked quite barren, with the only exception to that being the area containing all of the forged equipment.
Satisfied with how much he had retrieved from the Enlightenment Material Cache, Valyr soon left the building with a smile on his face, heading back to the courtyard in search of more things to obtain.
