Early Evening - Late Spring : Kingdom of Kaelallan

*Thump* *Bang*

-What in the world is happening down there..-

Oliver was on his way to see me to take me to the vault, but on his way down the lift, he could hear loud and deep thumps.

*Thump* *Wshhhh*

Once at the bottom of the lift, he started hearing the sound of water hitting the ground.

*Thump*

-Just what..- Looking over towards the noise, he saw a huge pillar of water coming out of the hotspring.

Once he got closer, he noticed something shining at the edges of the spring.

-Gold?-

It took a moment for him to process what it meant.

-He can make gold too!?-

Oliver figured that I could only make silver colored metals like aluminum or steel.

-It can't be real gold though, right?-

He tried to analyze it since he didn't believe that it was real gold.

-Oh my lord.. its re..- *THUMP*

A massive plume of water shot out of the spring, catching his face in it.

"Oh welcome back Oliver." I was floating, just sticking my head out of the water, "oh did I catch you up in that? My bad.."

I quickly hopped out and used magic to dry him off.

He was still stunned from the huge plume of water that hit his face so I tapped him with the back of my nail to snap him out of it.

"Hello? Oliver?"

"Ah right sorry. Was just shocked is all."

"So what do you need? You couldn't have come down just for a bath right?"

"No, of course not. I came down to finally give you your reward for the contract."

It was as if money signs appeared in my eyes as I changed to my humanoid form, "Lead the way!"

"Okay but first of all, how did you get that gold?" He was looking at the edges of the spring.

"Well I made it of course!"

-But.. how?- "What do you mean you made it?"

"Like I used earth magic and made it." I held up my hand as I quickly created a small gold ball in my palm.

Oliver was completely stunned.

Humanoids were far too lacking in mana to be able to even create basic materials from nothing, the best they could do was manipulate the attributes of an already existing material. (its different for things like fuel)

Even then, changing attributes of materials, a field known as alchemy, was rarely even seen in the world.

Most people would only call an alchemist for strengthening a weapon or assistance in creating artifacts so the field had fallen off in recent years.

Seeing my casual display of me making gold, a bad idea crossed Oliver's mind, "Do you think you could make a gold coin with that?"

"Yeah." I molded the ball in my hand to a near exact replica of a gold coin with Kaelallans crest.

"Ahem, how about I commission you to ma-"

"Nope, I'm not making you money Oliver."

Although a little disappointed, Oliver still wore a smile, "why not?"

"Well if I make a bunch of gold for you, eventually that gold will be worth less because more people will have it."

Oliver looked confused at my very short explanation of inflation.

"If you want to know the real reason, it's because I'm too lazy."

"Haah.. I guess that's fair. Well let's go to the vault." Oliver was a little sad at the missed opportunity so he quickly moved towards the vault.

Inside the stone warehouse, we walked to the back and came across the huge metal door with a turn handle on it. (Like ones on a submarine hatch or a bulky safe. Couldn't find the actual name of it)

Although the handle was looking very enticing, Oliver tapped certain spots of the metal wall that pushed in.

-So it's a passcode..-

Once he finished pressing buttons, the door automatically opened.

"Wait so what's that big handle for?"

"It's just a distraction, that handle doesn't actually turn at all but it'll help waste someone's energy if they try to force it open."

-Its oddly smart..-

The heavy door slowly opened and revealed a rather small room, but it was full of treasure.

The treasure wasn't just randomly piled around, but instead in chests neatly organized around the room.

Each of the chests was filled with various gold, gems and artifacts and the walls were lined with incredibly beautiful weapons.

Everything was beautiful, but one thing in particular caught my eye.

At the very center of the room on an extremely fancy golden pedestal was a monster core.

It was nearly half a meter wide and an extremely deep, nearly black, blue.

My mouth instantly started watering as I imagined how it tastes.

"You seem to like that core.."

Snapping out of my thoughts, I looked over at him, "are you reluctant to give it up?"

"Well.. it's the royal family's heirloom. We don't have any uses for it and I won't go back on my word if you want it though."

"I'll look around first."

I spent the next hour or so looking through the various chests and thinking about what I really needed currently.

-Don't need a weapon.. don't need money.. these artifacts are useless..-

Once I was finalizing my choice I saw a small black rectangular 'thing'.

-Hey that looks like a phone.- A smile came to my face as it brought back a wave of nostalgia.

Picking it up, I looked around for buttons but couldn't find anything.

-Haha.. imagine it had a home button.- *Beep*

We froze, only the noise of Ilios's tail wagging as he stared at me was heard.

The 'phone' I was holding in my hand, might actually be a phone.

The screen displayed '0' which I assumed was its power, -so its dead..-

Although it was a shame, there wasn't anything I could do.

I tried to see if I could find something resembling a battery inside with mana, but the technology was far too foreign.

I eventually found something that was probably the battery, but I had no clue what it used as the charge.

"I think I'll take this.." I was still dumbstruck that me goofing around and pressing where a home button would be, worked.

"That's an artifact we found quite a while back. It came from the sky along with a bunch of scrap metal. We ended up selling and reusing the scrap but we kept this since it was still intact."

-So is this came from space just like the cube huh..- "Yeah I'll take this." Although the core was very enticing, all it would do would be expand my reserve some. I couldn't just pass up the opportunity to get a step closer to finding out what that cube was.

"Alright, well I hope you dont regret it." Oliver was humble on the surface, but under that facade was joy. Joy that I took something completely worthless instead of the monster core worth more than his life savings.

Walking out of the vault, we didn't talk. I was busy inspecting the 'phone' and Oliver didn't care to interrupt, but once we got out of the warehouse, Oliver looked like he wanted to speak up.

"What is it?"

"Ah, I was just wondering if you could do one last thing for me."

-Sounds troublesome..- "And that would be?"

"Could you go with Lucy to school tomorrow? She seemed down when I said you probably weren't going to go at the same time as her."

"How about you get me a decent sized monster core as payment?" The huge core in the vault made me hungry for one, even if it was small.

-Greedy dragon..- "Alright I'll see what I can do."

Although I could see he wasn't super happy with it, he still accepted so I was happy. "Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow morning then."

"Haah.." Letting out a deep sigh, Oliver went back up the lift.

"Today was a good day! Don't you think so Ilios?"

"Woof!"

"How about a nap?"

"Woof."

Heading over and laying down on the cushion, Ilios curled up in his usual spot letting me embrace him some.

-Petting his fur is true bliss..-