THEOS

After a few more tries, and getting buzzed one more time, Luke managed to drag the drop of blood from within the ring, and pull it out. In the process, disabling the protection on the ring.

At Cyzicus's direction, Luke withdrew Maximus from its sheath, and made a shallow cut on one of his fingers. Holding it against the ring, he watched fascinated as blood dripped from his wound and seeped into the metal.

“Good. It’s bound to you. The ring will preserve and compare the mana in the blood against your own everytime it feels the touch of the energy.” Said Cyzicus.

Luke nodded at his words, as he flooded the ring with his mana. Like the Emperor said, it went in without him incurring any negative effects.

So there is a way for me to be found out by my mana, so long as they have my blood… that’s not good. He thought nervously, as he let it flow through every nook and cranny of the ring, feeling each and every object inside it.

Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the Seed had already indexed what was in there, and none of it was any more valuable on his second pass through than it had been on his first.

Still, some arrows, a cool bow, and a shit ton of Mortal-tier weapons isn’t anything to sneeze at. Even the healing potions by themselves aren’t a bad haul. I’m already running out of the ones that I found in Sophia’s Forge, although I should probably be able to buy more. Killing the Rebel has got to be worth some merits.

Leaving the items alone for the moment, he brushed his mana against the ring’s controls. There was more going on there than he had anticipated.

Part of the mana he put into the ring was subtly being siphoned away by the drop of blood, making it glow red within its runed prison. Curious, he increased the amount of mana he was channeling into the ring by an entire point, and without missing a beat, the blood swallowed it up.

Interesting.

Resolving to ask Cyzicus about the ring being so thirsty, he moved his attention to what he presumed were the controls.

They were surprisingly basic. One governed the strength of the shock, and true to the Emperor’s words, the defenses were set at only a tenth of their full strength. Fiddling around with it, he discovered that he could manually disable them, allowing anyone access, or engage them to the maximum extent, which as he claimed would likely kill even a warrior.

Dialing it up to the highest setting, he turned his attention to the remaining controls. One of them managed what he was pretty sure was a warning protocol, which slowly amped the intensity of the ring’s retaliation from levels that would mildly inconvenience a mortal, to instantly delivering a lethal dosage of current.

I should probably enable that. Or should I? On one hand, I don’t want to kill someone by mistake. On the other hand, I don’t want people fucking with my stuff. Cyzicus did say that it’s virtually impossible to get into an already bound ring, so there’s that, and I can always change it later… Besides, it’s not like I’m going to be keeping anything truly valuable here anyhow. That’s what the inventory is for, and speaking of–

He diverted his attention to the Seed, and on a whim, he sent a random vial of potion directly from his inventory into the ring, and pulled it back out again, all without the ring even flashing.

Now that’s pretty useful.

The last command just gave a read on how ‘charged’ the ring was, which turned out to be not very. Either the warrior he had killed hadn’t filled it, or it was designed to hold Hero-tier mana, but either way the amount of energy currently in the ring was less than a percent of what it could hold. Unlike his sword, the energy the ring held wasn’t available for his use, but to power the ring itself, but he resolved to fill it up nonetheless.

Guess Cyzicus wasn’t joking when he said it would take centuries for it to drain, if only a percent of the energy inside was able to shock me as much as it did.

Satisfied for the moment, Luke withdrew his attention from the ring, and turned to the waiting form of the Emperor.

“So, how should we do this? Do you want me to dump everything here? Luke asked.

“I’m afraid, I don’t follow.”

“It’s seventy-thirty right. Do you want to split it now, or…”

“Hah. You're truly amusing.” Cyzicus shook his head, and smiled. “You can keep all of what’s in there, I’m afraid none of it is of any value to me. I won’t even count it as part of your share.”

“Well, I won’t say no to it.” Luke shrugged, and after some deliberation, slid the ring on his finger. Only mildly surprised when it resized itself to fit him perfectly.

Turning his attention back to the series of hammers repeatedly striking the anvil, he settled in for a wait and spent his time getting used to taking things out of and putting them back in the ring. Even though the ring offered an ability that he already possessed, he couldn’t help but be excited. Having another dimensional space was just cool, doubly so, because he was free to use this one publicly and freely andit would let him use one of the seeds greatest abilities openly. So long as there weren’t any gods around.

And you know what, might as well… He thought, as he wrapped his sword and its sheath in mana, placing them first in the ring and then into the Seed’s inventory.

Contrary to Cyzicus’s expectations, they ended up standing in front of the contraption for the rest of the day. It took hours longer than Cyzicus originally predicted for him to consider the ring's energies depleted enough, that he felt breaking into it was worth the risk.

So, it was with baited breath that Luke watched the Hero solemnly turn the Rebel’s ring over in his fingers. The Hero’s nerves warring against his desire to open it, and claim the wealth inside, to the danger the the task represented.

“It’ll be fine.” Cyzicus said, to himself more than to Luke, as he built up the courage to break into the ring. “I’ve done this hundreds of times.”

“You have?”

“With Hero-tier rings, yes. I battled many warriors when I was young, and I wasn’t shy about taking their wealth as my own. This is the first time I’ve tried this with something of the Saint-tier however.”

“Well, maybe we should hammer it a little more–”

Cyzicus closed his eyes in concentration. Beads of sweat rolled down his temples, and splashed off the floor.

A moment later, a drop of her blood appeared in the air.

Cyzicus grinned, before every trace of joy was wiped from his features, and knowing what was in the ring, Luke couldn’t even begin to fathom how he was feeling right now.

He had wanted to warn him, tell him what was in there, and perhaps prepare him for the eventuality, but without a way to explain his knowledge, there wasn’t much he could do.

An oppressive aura blasted out from the Hero, and sent everything that wasn’t bolted down slamming against the walls. Cyzicus’s jaw clenched with poorly suppressed rage, his chest heaved, his eyes turned an electric blue, and arcs of lightning writhed like serpents over his frame.

“Cyz–”

The pressure faded as suddenly as it came. Both the Rebel’s ring, and the one on his finger shone a brilliant and blinding gold. The Hero forced a neutral expression on his face, a ring flew from his fingers, and landed in Luke’s palm.

“Your seventy percent is in there.” He said curtly. Then before Luke could say anything else to him, he flashed forward faster than he could perceive and rested a hand on his shoulder.

The world flickered, and turned black. When the light returned, he was standing back in his room, with the Emperor of Sylcra nowhere to be seen.

Sitting down heavily on the bed, he sighed. He felt bad for him, he truly did.

I’ve been through some pretty fucked up shit since I’ve been here, but that… that’s on another level. At least with me, it’s only ever been my life on the line. This world sucks. But I can’t even imagine what it’s like having it take what you love from you.

Surviving alone is hard, but having a family. Protecting them. Making sure they’re safe and sound, and then failing because some greedy asshole with more power than sense comes along, and ruins it all.

That’s fucking bullshit.

Heracles is right. He decided. Those who acted as the Rebel had, couldn’t be allowed to live in peace, with the world ignoring their deeds. What was the saying, all evil needs to spread is for good men to do nothing. It doesn’t matter if it's dangerous, if I can help, then I should.

SIghing, he turned his focus to the Saint-tier ring. It was gold, but as he turned it over in his hands, he found that it wasn’t the same one he had given him. It was fancier, studded with gems, and–

Did he give me his ring by mistake?

Calling the Seed into action, he attempted to send it to his inventory. Surprisingly, it went in.

Status | Skills | Quests | Inventory

Storage Ring (unbound)

Tier - Saint

A storage ring created by Chiron of Pelion, and gifted to a pupil.

Items:

Limitless Thunder Bow

Tier - Hero

An artifact forged by Primarch Asius of Samos. Allows users to mold their mana into lightning darts.

Blastguard

Tier - Saint

An artifact forged by Primarch Asius of Samos. Reduces damage done by explosive talismans.

Stasis Amulet

Tier - Hero

Prevents injuries from worsening at the cost of mana.

Blood

Tier - Hero

A vial of blood belonging to a Cyclops

Teleportation Plate x 9

Tier - Hero

A clay plate, when broken and filled with sufficient mana, allows for teleportation to a preset location.

[…]

Talisman Paper x 5000

Tier - Mortal

So it is a different one. Chiron… that’s the person Jason and Heracles were talking about, weren’t they? Their teacher, if I remember right. I guess Cyzicus was trained by him too then. With how old people can get in this world, I guess it’s not strange for the same person to be teaching now that was teaching back when Cyzicus was a kid.

With nothing else to do, he looked through the list, and came to a startling conclusion. Cyzicus hadn’t actually taken his thirty percent. All he had sought fit to remove were the headless corpses, the Flame Blade, and Sophia’s book.

Even the sword was probably hers. Thinking back, it was the only good thing in the ring that wasn’t made by Asius.

Removing the ring from his inventory, he sighed, and summoning his sword, pricked his finger once again.

The drop of blood went into the ring without any fuss, and emboldened by it, Luke sent his mana into it. The space inside was drastically larger than the Warrior-tier ring, at least by a factor of a hundred based on his own estimation.

Fishing through it, he pulled out the object that fascinated him the most.

The Limitless Thunder Bow was as tall as he was. Fashioned from an unmarked flat strip of gold, and lacking a drawstring, it was far from the elaborate weapon he anticipated it would be. Grabbing its grip, he funneled mana into it, and immediately a tendril of mana snapped into place between the two tips.

Huh. He went to pull it back, but before he could, a blur passed through the roof of his room, and hovered in the air in front of him. A beam of light shot out from it, and blasted his new bow across the room– disarming him.

Is that a drone? He thought incredulously. It looked nearly identical to the ones he remembered from Earth, but even more advanced and different from nearly everything he had seen on Theos thus far.

Its body was a perfect orb made out of seamless silver metal. Four arms stretched out from each corner parallel to the ground and on each one of them was a rapidly spinning propeller that made a nearly inaudible buzzing noise.

He stepped back nervously, and the drone moved a foot forward. Filling the space, but for the moment doing little else.

Not sure what was happening, Luke summoned his sword from the ring, and held it out in front of him.

“What are you?” He asked, preemptively activating the First Stance. The Technique didn’t work. Forcibly stopping himself from panicking, he activated the First Truth of Death.

It didn’t work.

Another beam of light shot out from it, but this time, it reflected harmlessly off the flat of his blade, and struck his bed. Making it catch fire instantly.

Alright, fight first, questions later. Lunging forward, he swung his blade down, aiming to split the thing in two.

He missed. The drone twitched at the last second, and his blade slashed through empty air. Frowning, he tried attacking it again and again, but with his Techniques not working, no matter what he did, he wasn’t able to land a hit.

Not seeing any other options, and with the room rapidly catching fire, he did the only thing that came to mind.

“HELP!” He yelled at the top of his lungs while activating a Hero-tier protective talisman, before dashing towards the door. Only for the drone to position itself right in front of it and block his path.

Another beam of light shot out, and popped the talisman like a bubble.

What the fuck is this.