Chapter 244: Cold Storage
“Forge Halls? As in more than one? Have I been accessing that when I make the kaijin?,” Zhen Liu asked.
“That’s…huh.”
=We will explain, but before we do so, can you please summon all the kaijin currently on your person? Pathos has something to show them while I show you to the halls. Oh yes, Miss Jin Fang feel free to accompany us or go with the kaijin.=
“Ah, this again. Alright. Come on out guys.”
[As you wish, milord.]
[Okay…]
[Finally!]
[Of course. My lord.]
[Huh?]
One by one, the kaijin exited from their “carry-modes” and appeared before Pathos.
One would think by now, Zhen Liu would get used to the fact that he had at his beck and call a demon warrior made of jade, a frost mammoth giant, a chimeric frog woman, a ballerina made of blades and a boxer made of springs and violence…but it was still cool to him.
“British…accent…?”
“Don’t you mean Gryphonite accent?”
“Huh? What. British? Razor?”
“I don’t know…”
As the kaijin followed Pathos out of the receiving hall, the only ones left were Zhen Liu, Logos and Jin Fang.
“Huh? You didn’t want to go with the kaijin this time?,” Zhen Liu asked. He was fairly certain a storage room and a bunch of halls would be a rather boring sight, not something that Jin Fang would find interesting.
“Nah. I’ll do that the next time we come back here and the group gets split up again.”
“That is fair.”
=Attention you two. Please come this way, the storage room awaits.=
The two humans in the room expected Logos to walk through the same doorway that Pathos had, seeing how it was the only one visible, but were surprised to see her walk up to a solid wall that suddenly manifested a rather ornate looking door with the opening covered by some weird blue energy.
Jin Fang had some mild misgivings about going through a suddenly appearing door, but it wasn’t the weirdest thing she had seen in this place. Granted, the weird film of blue energy on the door was a bit strange.
After exchanging a quick glance and shrugs, the two of them followed Logos to whatever this store room was.
*FWOOMP*
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*FWOOMP*
As Jin Fang and Zhen Liu cleared the gates threshold, they were about to make a small joke about the experience, but we’re gobsmacked when they saw the room they had just entered.
“Whoa…”
“Huh…”
=Welcome to the storage room…well, I guess the more appropriate name would be “The Demon’s Hoard”, but I think we’re calling it the “Nowhere Vault” now? Workshop the name, as Pathos woud say.=
The “Nowhere Vault” as Logos called it, was essentially a giant warehouse like storeroom with floor to ceiling shelf after shelf filled with various boxes with all sorts of labels on them.
The three of them were currently standing on a balcony, overlooking everything, while a few feet in front of them was what appeared to be a console that wouldn’t be out of place from a high tech storelage facility.
“If everything is floating like that, how are you supposed to retrieve anything?,” Jin Fang asked in awe.
Zhen Liu though this was comment was weird, until Logos spoke up in his head.
=Place a hand on Jin Fang’s shoulder and try shifting your perspective.=
‘Huh? Okay…’
Doing as instructed, while making it look like he was reassuring her, Zhen Liu placed a hand on Jin Fang’s shoulders to see what she was seeing.
‘Oh…shit….’
The warehouse format before him was gone, replaced with what appeared to be an endless void filled with countless stars. He could instinctively tell that each of the stars were actually items, the power locked in them proportionate to the brightness of the stars. As for the console he saw, Jin Fang saw a strange orb-like apparatus, like something out of a magical steampunk comic.
‘Perspective is a bitch,’ Zhen Liu concluded as he switched his own perspective back to his own.
The starry void was cool, the warehouse was more sensible.
Sensing that this moment of wonder went on long enough, Logos spoke up again.
=Now then milord, if you come this way, I can show you how to use the console to retrieve and store the various materials, equipment and cores you may come across your journey.=
“Aight.”
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*Bing-Bong*
Note, the following is gonna get weird, because it’s going to be the same scene told in different perspectives, which will lead to different details. Same content, different way of getting there.
*Bing-Bong*
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Zhen Liu made his way over to the console, and immediately noticed that it seemed to be a touch screen set up with two simple button prompts.
=Now, as you can see here milord, the options available in the Vault are simply “Search” and “List”. The second option is straightforward, it just lists off all of the items currently inside of the vault, and if you click on the item’s icon, it will bring up stuff like value, innate aether properties, kaijin suitability, etc.=
“Understandable.”
=The “Search” option is what you’ll be using to retrieve and store things. I do believe you have a kaijin core that might be expiring soon, please look up the term “core storage”.=
“Alright.”
Zhen Liu activated the search function and typed in the words “core storage” before pressing the enter key.
*Tap*
“Whoa!”
The moment the key was pressed, the shelves began to shuffle around and move like giant mechanical pillars, raising and lowering until a particular set of shelves moved to be right in front of the trio.
This shelf contained several dozen glass container, each with a glowing desire core.
“…huh…”
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‘How…is he understanding any of this?,’ Jin Fang thought to herself as she watched her boyfriend walk up to the strange brass orb before them.
She watched as Zhen Liu simply reached out towards the orb, causing an elaborate array of runes and sigils to manifest and make contact with Zhen Liu’s hands.
“Understandable,” she heard him say.
Through a strange series of movements, Zhen Liu began to familiarize himself with the orb, causing the void of stars before her to shift and move like fish in a pond, forming abstract shapes one moment and bursting the next.
“Alright,” she heard him mutter.
A couple motions later, Zhen Liu had managed to bring down one of the stars before them, and made the glowing cease.
Before them appeared an ornate yet demonic looking treasure box that quickly opened and revealed dozens upon dozens of strange glass bottles containing the same “cores of desire” that Zhen Liu has been gathering as of late.
She saw a strange look, forming on Zhen Liu’s face.
“…huh…”.
