As Clay and Timber groggily came too from a night of deep sleep caused by the exhaustion of the previous day they slowly came back to their usual alertness that had become the norm, the events of the previous day weighed heavily on their mind as they thought of the battle the thrill and the power that they had gained from it, their hearts raced and shook the last remaining bit of sleep from their bodies as the promise of upcoming battles exhilarated them because of the increasing strength that came with it which in turn ensured their furthered survival and that was their current top priority.
With this the duo were eager to get back into the fray but before they did that they had to eat with this meal they had finished the last of their prepared rations.
Once done with the food Clay decided to heck out the store to see if there was anything they could use as they moved forward, but he couldn't help but to be drawn to the glass display case at the front of the store as he could feel the manas density somewhat intensify inside of it, once clay had noticed this he was now determined to find out what inside of this display case in a random corner store could cause such a reaction in the mana, as he was walking towards the case Clay forced some of his mana in his eyes because with this he could both enhance his vision and see the flow of mana much easier and with greater clarity, with his mana enhanced eyes it was clear as day what the source of the disturbance was as among the random things in the case there was a singlet ring made of some grey metal most likely stainless steel but if one saw it with mana enhances eyes they could see the copper colored aura that radiated off of it.
With this development Clay didn't hesitate to smash the top of the glass display case and grab the ring, as he just held it nothing spectacular happened so he decided to try to inject his own mana in it on a hunch, his hunch seemed to be the correct way to go because as soon as he did it poured a heap of information into clays head and with this information he learned that the ring was something called an (artifact) and artifacts are just items that have absorbed a certain amount of mana. His artifact in particular was a ring which held a small pocked dimension that was about six foot by six foot, and he could put items in and take items out of it as long as they were able to fit in the area provided and can't be anything living but all he has to do is to be in contact with the object to put it is and wish for the object to come out to take it Back out.
With this new knowledge Clay immediately put on the ring which shrunk to perfectly match the size of his finger, with this he could now feel a mental connection with the ring.
With clay having equipped his first artifact the first thing he did was to take his heavy military style backpack in and out of his ring a few times before finally leaving it in the ring for good.
With his new artifact Clay decided it was time to leave the store as he made sure to stock up on at least a weeks worth of food before leaving.
After this Clay called to Timber as they began to move to their next location, their next location was an obelisk that has the smallest and fewest number of monsters coming of it but as it was pretty far away they were bound to run into a few fights.
On the way to the obelisk Clay and Timber would occasionally run into a duo or trio of goblins but since they were both stronger than them the goblins were decimated only to turn into cores, by the half way mark Clay and Timber had absorbed fourteen cores collectively which amounts to each of the two of them absorbing seven cores which had boosted their strength and fighting power.
At around the three quarter mark the duo rand into a beast that wasn't a goblin but something new.
The new creature was an orc, a six foot tall creature with a repulsive pig like face and body yet it was obvious that the beast was strong with its piercing green eyes.
Seeing the orc Clay and Timber got ready to fight the beast as Timber snarled and Clay took a knife from the space inside of his ring. Timber rushed forward and launched herself at the beast who in response threw its arms up for defense only to have a set of terrible teeth penetrate into his arm, while the orc was busy with Timber Clay was busy pouring mana into a blade he had gotten from the store until the point that it reached its limit.
Clay held the lightly thrumming light purple knife as he called Timber to come to his side and while waiting for Timber to be a safe distance away before adding even more mana and throwing it with all his might, as the heavily thrumming knife that was filled with power hit the orc the knife exploded causing a shockwave to come off, by the Time that the dust settled from this attack the orc had been blown in half.
As Timber saw Clay she respected the amazing power that he had just shown so she had given the orcs core to Clay even having gone through the trouble of harvesting it for him.
The orc score was slightly denser in mana than the leader goblins core had been so when he integrated with the core his own core had increased by a good amount, with all the cores he had absorbed today his own core had become double the density that it once had been meaning that his power had also risen by a good about this was something that Clay was immensely satisfied with his growth.
On the rest of the way to the obelisk there were no more interferences as they got there without having to fight again.
Once they arrived at the towering obelisk Clay had immediately began inspecting it until eventually he found a hand shaped protrusion in the stone, out of curiosity Clay put his hand on this stone and without warning he and Timber had turned into massive balls of light and then disappeared from where they were in front of the obelisk