Chapter 44 - Challenge

"Sure I'm ready to fight whenever you just pick a time and a place and I'll be there." said Dante staring straight at elder Harrison unwaveringly.

"Alright since you're so confident then let's do it your way. Let's make an announcement for a challenge that anybody that can defeat you can get the core training of the clan and that includes a focus of resources directed towards them!"

This stament received various nods of approval from the surrounding elders and since Dante was confident in his strength he readily agreed

"Sure, I'm willing to fight whoever you can bring!"

"Great" replied Elder Harrison "since you're so confident the challenge will be tomorrow at the clan training ground, I hope you don't back out or that would be really embarrassing for you now, wouldn't it ."

Seeing that the discussion between elder Harrison and Dante was slowly turning into an argument Patriarch Gavin quickly interrupted.

"Now that we have a fair way of determining the distribution of resources I can finally bring this meeting to an end.

After some brief closing statements and quick discussions, the meeting finally came to a conclusion.

Soon The elders Started to leave until it was only Winton, Patriarch Gavin and Dante left in the room.

Seeing that everyone had left Winton finally asked.

"What's with pulling that stunt? You know we could have got you any resources you want without all that hassle, and now you have to fight everyone for something you could have got regardless."

"I knew I could have got resources without the fight but they wouldn't have been enough but now I can use as many resources as I need without being judged, besides I have full confidence in my abilities to win the fight."

Shaking his head Winton could only reply " just because your confident doesn't mean that you can just go in unprepared"

"Of course I won't go in unprepared, the main reason I even came here was that I came to ask for some resources that could be used to increase my strength"

"Oh, if that's it you can just follow me, I'll show you where we store all the good stuff!" said Patriarch Gavin

And like that the three of them went outside towards the storage area of the clan.

Due to the presence of both the Patriarch and the First Elder, nobody even bothered to check whether they had permission to even be there.

After going past the last set of guards They finally entered the storage room. Inside of the room was filled with mostly weapons and armour some even glowed with a soft colourful light showing off their magical nature. But it was not just that the room was stacked full of bottles each bottle contained tens of pills of all sorts of types be they energy recovering pills or healing pills, they all could be found here.

But to Dante's disappointment there seemed to be no elemental treasures like the scarlet Flame Rose anywhere.

Puzzled by this discovery's turned to ask the Patriarch.

"The clan's treasure store seems very impressive but why can I not see any elemental treasures"

Hearing Dante's words the proud smirk on Patriarch Gavin's face stiffened completely as he heard Dante's question.

"Well... it's like this, elemental treasures are extremely rare and it's difficult for them to form but the most painful part is that when they do form they are usually taken by arrogant disciples from sects or sometimes even the Vaenam Kingdom Military themselves come to claim them! Only relatively useless elemental treasures are left for other people to claim. "

As he spoke Patriarch Gavin had an extremely pained expression on his face, it was clear that he was talking from painful experience.

After seeing such a tragic expression Dante himself felt sorry for even bringing up the topic.

Switching up the conversation Dante continued asking "let's forget about the Elemental treasures, what I really wanted to ask was do you have any magic metals?" since the silver Dragon was a creature of great magical affinity magic metals were obviously going to be the best magic material to level up his silver Dragon and gain some energy points.

Hearing Dante's question Patriarch Gavin answered

"Of course we have magic metals in fact I'm pretty sure we have one type of magic metal in abundance, Spirit Steel!"

As he spoke Patriarch Gavin led them to an offshoot of the treasure room.

Unlike the other room which was filled with various treasures of all shapes and sizes scattered all over the place, this one was very neat and compact and contained only one material hundreds of shining grey ingots stood perfectly stacked inside the room creating an impressive sight to anyone seeing it for the first time.

Seeing Dante's impressed look Patriarch Gavin felt proud of himself and couldn't resist explaining.

"This is the room where we store most of the mines spirit steel. Ever since I took over the role as patriarch of the Clan I have effectively doubled the amount of spirit steel mines due to my excellent role allocation and distribution of manpower, not bad isn't it ? " asked Patriarch Gavin.

But Dante was too focused on the massive piles of resources in front of him to be paying attention to the words of Patriarch Gavin and could only passively nod before asking.

"Am I allowed to use these materials ?"

"Of course you can or why else would I have even brought you here" replied Patriarch Gavin