KINETIC

Chapter 14 Unexpected Treasure

When waking up, Leo could feel that he hadn't gained any energy since he fell asleep. This confirmed that he doesn't regenerate energy naturally.

'I only managed to absorb around 20% worth of my max energy yesterday before I fell asleep, but it should be enough to open the safe.'

Leo walks to the safe and stands in front of it. He channels his energy into his hand an concentrates it into the tip of his finger. He presses his finger against where the keyhole and lock mechanisms are.

It's takes 3 tries before Leo hits the right spot and the door swings open. Half the energy he had, was used to do this. The contents of the safe are underwhelming, containing only a single black ring with gold engravings of a snake on it.

The engraving depicted a snake coiling around the interior and exterior of the ring in a spiral, ending with it appearing to almost bite it's own tail.

'I was really hoping there would be some Ven in here, or at least something I could sell. This ring looks like it could be valuable, but I'm not certain it is.' Leo reaches forward and picks up the ring.

As Leo makes contact with the ring, the snake glows a dim gold for a few seconds and then returns to normal. Leo decides to put the ring on his left middle finger. As he does, he can feel his mind connect to something.' I can feel a room... Something that's here but not here, but I don't know how to...' When Leo concentrates on the room he's connecting with, he can feel his mind shifting to another place.

When opening his eyes, he can see that he's in a different place. A plain room made of stone, in the shape of a 5 meter cube.

Inside the room there are 3 pouches lying on the floor, as well as a white crystal. Leo picks up one of the pouches and looks inside. It's filled with Ven, and once again, its mostly copper with a few silver pieces mixed in. The other 2 pouches are the same as well.

'Where is this place... I could feel that it was there but as soon as I focused on it, I was here. How do I go back... Do I just need to think of the bedroom again?'

Leo tries to imagine himself standing in the bedroom of Margraves house. When he opens his eyes, Leo is staring at the safe in front of him, with 3 pouches of Ven in his hands.

' Was it because of the ring? I only felt that place when I put this on.' Leo places the pouches down on the bed and then takes the ring off and places it next to them. As soon as he let go of the ring and was no longer touching it, he couldn't feel the other room anymore.

'So, it really was the ring. Since I've brought the pouches back with me, and taking the ring off didn't make them disappear, I suppose this thing is some kind of storage? This along with the bathtub... I guess slaves aren't told about the existence of such wonderful items... '

Leo puts the ring back on and can feel the storage once again, the only thing inside currently is the white crystal.' Do I have to go into the room every time or am I able to just take things out the same way I enter and leave that place, by thinking about it?'

Leo imagines himself holding the crystal. In the next second the snake glows dimly and, out of nowhere, the crystal appears in Leo's left hand. Leo then imagines putting the crystal back inside the storage space.

Just as it appeared, the ring glowed slightly and the crystal vanished back into the storage ring. 'This is much better than I could've hoped for. This ring will make it a lot easier to travel. I'll be able to take more food with me from the storage room downstairs as well. The biggest advantage is that none of my Ven will be seen by others until I want to use it, since I'll be keeping it in here, so nobody can steal from me.' Leo is delighted at the discovery of the storage ring, like a child with a new toy.

'Alright, let's see how much Ven I've gotten out of this place.' Leo takes all his pouches, he sits cross legged on the floor and pours out their contents in front of him.

Over the next half hour, Leo separates his Ven into separate pouches while counting their worth.' Bronze plates are worth 1 Ven, silver plates are worth 10 Ven, gold plates are worth 100 Ven, and finally, platinum plates are worth 1000 Ven. After sorting it out, I've got 3 punches filled with bronze plates and another that's close to full, while the last pouch has some silver plates. Each pouch can hold 100 plates at most. I've got 384 Ven worth of bronze plates and 300 Ven worth of silver plates... 684 Ven in total.'

This was the most Ven Leo had ever seen in his entire life. He felt as though he had just become the richest man alive. His happiness soon faded when he remembered there was something important that he needed to do today. Something he wasn't looking forward to.

'I can't put it off, I need to bury all the bodies outside... Especially Zack, he deserves that much at least.' Leo dug one large grave and moved all the burnt corpses into it before covering it up again. He didn't know who anyone was and digging an individual grave for each of them would take too much time.

Doing this still took him an entire day, and the entire time he was absorbing energy from his movements.

Leo dug a separate grave for Zack. He placed Zack's body gently into the grave and slowly covered him with dirt.

'I'm sorry I couldn't save you Zack... But I promise that I'll do everything in my power to prevent something like this from happening to anyone else ever again. Should I ever see someone treating another person like they deserve to be beneath them... I'll show that person how low they really are in this world. If I see a person harming another, I'll treat them to twice the pain they inflicted. You have my word... '

With that Leo went back to the house, he went to the bedroom upstairs and ransacked the cupboards. Taking all the clothes within them that looked like they would fit him. Leo put on a nice pair of long black trousers, with black shoes to match. As well as a black long sleeve button up shirt with the sleeves rolled halfway up to the elbows.

He took as much food as he thought necessary from the storage room. As well as the utensils and cookware needed to eat and make food.

With that Leo walked out of the camp, stopping to look back for a second, remembering his friend that had lost his life and his soul.

Leo turned away from the camp, walking down the path shown on the map, heading towards the town it displayed.