"And how the hell am I supposed to do that?" Seth scoffed at him, if they don't know what it is how is he meant to destroy it in the first place?
But Lloyd just shrugged his shoulders and casually replied "Everything in this world has a weak point, you'll just have to figure it out; Based on what Azula senses it shouldn't be too much of a threat now anyway, either way you need to get rid of it to leave this place, so you don't really have a choice!"
"You…" Seth swore in his mind as he felt like an impossible task just got dropped on his lap before sighing again.
"Ah and I guess before you go, take this as an advance payment; I'm sure you'll find it useful." Lloyd said hurriedly while pointing at a point in the room, a gold light shot out from the pile of treasures and darted towards Seth before floating in front of him.
"What's this?" He stared into the bright light before holding his bony hand under it causing the gold luminescence to disperse revealing an item inside, it was a circlet with a black spherical gem inlaid in the centre, runes that faintly glowed with white luminescence that was barely visible travelled the entire circumference and around the gem.
"It's a [Storage Circlet], you were an adventurer, right? You should know how valuable such a thing is"
"Wait, seriously?! I've never seen one this size… all I had before was a small ring with a gem the size of a chip of stone!" If Seth had a heart, it would be giving him a heart attack at this point; His ring he had as an adventurer had a storage area of 2² meters which was already incredibly useful, based on the size on the gem in this circlet it must be at least 20 times that.
"Hehe, that's just a small taste of what we have here in this treasury, it's the same type of storage item that our main descendants use, this place has the accumulation of the entire royal family since the first generation you definitely can't look down on it!" Lloyd proclaimed with pride before continuing to boast. "That one there has a 50² meter storage space so it's basically all you'll ever need, and it has a seal on it, when not in use it prevents outside contact and also has a filter when in use, reducing the speed at which items inside spoil like food and such!"
"5-50?! That's ridiculous how much would this go for?! Also, the seal sounds incredibly useful… oh wait I can't eat can i?" Seth doubted for a second.
'Or can I? I can eat cores and whatever else but there's no taste… I wonder if there's a way to solve that problem'
"I wouldn't show it off If I were you, at the very least don't tell anyone that storage size because as far as I knew, back then no-one else had such a large storage size in their items" The king gave his warning to Seth.
Of course, Seth made sure to engrave that warning on his core, expensive items were always a double-edged sword with all the greedy people out there.
"Now then, you should set off" Lloyd said while waving Seth away as if telling him to go away, though it wasn't quite that rude.
Seth left the treasury as he was still inspecting every corner on the inside of the circlet, it was a thing of beauty and crafted ever so carefully, the inside was a massive square space and he immediately put it to test as the large doors closed behind him with a massive bang, but he didn't get distracted as he was too immersed in the item.
He activated it and something akin to a hole expanded from the gem on top of the circlet reaching half a meter wide, a storage item used mana to open and close and the bigger the opening the more mana consumed, he placed the sword and shield inside along with the gladius he still had slipped between his ribs for hand storage, they barely took up any room at all and he was beyond ecstatic, being told the size and seeing it first hand were two different things, he'll basically never need another storage item or a bag again!
Silva who was following behind ignored Seth playing with the circlet like a toy and spoke.
("Well, that certainly wasn't what I was expecting to see, to think that dragon would merge with its contractor… this world certainly surprises me sometimes")
Seth peered up from the circlet and decided to ask Silva now that they were alone "So, what's your opinion on that thing?"
("What thing?") Silva raised an eyelid like it was an eyebrow.
"This shadow or whatever, you said you didn't know anything but surely you have a guess?"
Silva closed his eyes in contemplation for a little while trying to put everything together in his mind.
("Well, it's not that I have no idea, but I really don't like it, I said before that me and Azula were once summoned at the same time, correct?") To this question Seth silently nodded before Silva continued ("Azula may or may not have noticed since when we deal with the fallen spirits back then, I was the one to finish them off, but their spiritual energy became murky in colour rather than the pure silver that we spirits have, but not to the degree of becoming black and twisted that we have this time")
"So, you think that it may be related to the fallen spirits in some way?" Seth questioned almost hoping that his conclusion was false.
("Unfortunately, that is highly likely, the fact that it can corrupt the spiritual ley-lines is what makes it incredibly likely since only a spiritual being can do something like that, however I really don't think that is the end of it… as to what that end will lead to, I don't have much of an idea but whatever it is, I really don't like it") Silva finished with a grimace painted on his small face, his golden eyes glimmered with a sense of ruthlessness.
"If something that bad has appeared then why weren't any missions given out by the divine? If the fallen before made them give one for the two of you, surely another or multiple would be given out for these?"
("They most likely did, and it's likely that we just met one person who received the mission") Silva stated reminding him of the encounter they just had.
'Of course, if the king has a contracted spirit, then he must have received a mission, considering his kingdom ended up in this state he obviously failed…'
"Then why on earth did my mission become something as vague as "See the world"? Surely it would be "Deal with the corruption" or something grand like that?" Seth questioned; he still didn't understand the mission the divine gave him.
Silva didn't answer him and instead was murmuring to himself ("These black beings, the fact that there was a period where no spirit was contracted for an extended period of time, if these two things align and are related then… sigh, what a disaster…")
Seth noticed the vaguely depressed look crossing Silva's furry face but decided not to ask, he felt at the very least if he needed to know something Silva would tell him, that and he had enough on his plate at the moment already and didn't feel like overstuffing himself without eating anything else first.
"Wait… he told us to destroy whatever was causing the corruption but where do we even start? Damnit I should have asked them before we left it would be awkward as hell to return without doing anything!"
("Ah, well Azula would know since she's linked with the castle's formation so she has a much better sense of the surrounding ley-lines but for us… well you could attempt to merge with them again but with your inexperience it isn't really a good idea.") Silva reminded him of his first near-death experience when he first merged causing Seth to also reject the idea immediately.
("We'll just have to comb this entire place with [Spirit Vision], it should be clearly visible within the silver colour of the spirit energy so we can probably cross off most of the places we've looked at before, no, maybe a double check is a good idea…") Silva once again murmured to himself trying to put together a plan.
As Seth was listening to his rambling something hit him in his head, not an object but an idea.
"Black aura? If I remember correctly, didn't I see something similar when I first performed the spirit merge?" He tried to recall those moments which wasn't hard since the experience was beyond vivid in his memory.
'That's it!' Seth exclaimed in his head, "I know where it is!".
("What, you do?") Silva gave him a confused look; how did Seth know when he had no idea?
"It's as you said, if I performed a spirit merge I could probably tell and I remember something from my first experience; I remember a large dark aura covering the opposite end of this ravine, but I had no idea what to make of it at the time, based on what I've heard the origin is most likely there!"
Silva was inwardly impressed ("I'm amazed you managed to recall something like that when you almost died! Still, it would make sense, we didn't see much off on the way here so it would be somewhere you haven't been…")
"Then that's that then, guess it's more walking for me… to the other side of this damn ravine!"