Zoey made her way over to the chest, stepping around the bones as she went. The first trial was not very hard for her as she barely had to move the entire time. The goblins had only clubs and some rusty blades, no ranged weapons so she was not pressured by them. Maybe the next trial would be more difficult. She could not deny feeling a tiny bit of anticipation!

She reached the chest and gingerly opened it, half expecting some fanfare and trumpets to sound as she did. There was no fanfare, only a creak from the hinges of the chest as she opened it. Inside was only a single item, a ring, at the bottom of the chest.

She picked up the ring and inspected it curiously. It was a simple black band and on the inside she saw a set of letters in a language she did not recognize. Sethrii's translate function that she had been gifted with worked for language and writing in this world. She had been able to read the words on the signs in Colten, but she could not read the words on the ring at all.

On a whim she activated her Aether Engineer talent and selected the modify option from the interface. Sure enough, she was unable to select the ring to modify it. Only the items she had created showed up as options to modify. Maybe if she got to Rank 3 and her talent got another upgrade she would be able to modify items she had not created.

Zoey frowned as she closed her interface and looked at the ring. She was hesitant to put it on as she had no idea what it was for, or what kind of magical enchantment was placed on it. She could not sense anything from the ring with her essence, but that did not mean it was not magical.

As she mulled it over, her interface chirped at her. Opening it up again, she found a new menu blinking at her. An inspection menu! As per usual her interface had detected her needs and developed a tool for her to use. She eagerly opened the new inspection menu and found that she could simply look at the ring and the info would show on her display!

[ITEM: Ring of Holding

[DESCRIPTION: Provides a dimensional storage space to the owner of the ring.

The description of the ring was simple and concise. Zoey nodded in approval as she read it. This would indeed be useful. Now that she knew it wasn't some cursed item, she placed the ring on the thumb of her left hand. Once she slipped it on, the band magically adjusted to fit her thumb and she felt a cool sensation in her hand as her magic essence bound the ring to her. As this happened, her interface suddenly popped up with another message.

[Storage Item Detected

[Activate Inventory Manager? {YES} {NO}

Zoey was slightly surprised, but selected yes. Once she did a new screen opened up and the ring on her thumb became slightly warm. The screen that popped up was aptly named "Inventory" and displayed the capacity of her ring. It was surprisingly big, around ten cubic meters, and at the moment was completely empty.

She took her backpack as an experiment and attempted to "put" the pack and its contents into her new inventory. The pack disappeared from her hand, and her "Inventory" display updated a moment later. The backpack showed up and all the materials she had acquired that morning showed up as well. The screen showed a small image of the items and quantity next to the item, conveniently placing the items into a stack and sorting them alphabetically as well. She had seen this same style of inventory in the holographic VR games back on Gaia. Her interface seemed to be pulling inspiration from her vague memories of those times.

It was also quite intuitive, as she could easily "put" and "take" things out of the inventory with a thought. She didn't need to have her interface open either. As long as she focused her thoughts on specifically what she was trying to "take" from the inventory, it would appear as she desired. She ended up storing all of her gear in the ring as it was considerably more convenient than to have it hanging from her belt.

She had been quite lucky with her first reward. She could see now why the people of Darren treated the dungeons as treasure troves. Seeing that there was nothing left for her in this area, she continued on her way deeper into the dungeon, practicing with her inventory on the way. She wanted it to be second nature when it came to pulling her weapons and gear from the inventory even if she was in combat. She wasn't sure how deep this place would go, but she was in for the long haul if necessary.

She made it to the bottom of the stairs and got her first look at the next area. Visually there wasn't much different here from the previous area. The cave was still covered in rocky stalagmites and stalactites and the glowing moss covered most surfaces. The first thing she noticed when she started walking through the area was that there were strange burn marks on the ground and the stalagmites. Not frequent at first but the further she went the more she saw. Then she began to notice the remains among the crevases and spires of rock.

These remains were clearly from previous challengers as they were mostly human and Vekt remains. Zoey also saw some strange remains that she didn't recognize. She spotted some that looked like a humanoid lizard species and a strange set of remains with a round, featureless skull that looked like a ball attached to the body by a spine. She wondered if maybe one day she would meet a living member of these strange species.

Before long she reached what seemed to be the midpoint of the area. There was a large open area that was completely burnt black by the burn marks. There was no doubt in her mind that this trial was related to whatever had made those burn marks. She focused herself mentally, and stepped into the center of the area. Like before there was the beating pulse of magic that flowed through the area, building up to a crescendo and then abruptly stopping.

The second trial was about to begin!