Now whenever Nick summoned his house elf in public whoever saw it would think he had an abundance of money even if he didn't. That wasn't to say that he didn't have a stupid amount of money at his disposal as he finally got an exact number of coins in his vault. Around five hundred million galleons , two hundred thousand sickles and nearly fifty thousand knuts in total wealth. That didn't even include rare tomes , materials and other things that were also in the vault waiting to be found that weren't explicitly stated in the paperwork.-
"Well now that all of this is done with it's time to move on to todays actual business. I need to make a transfer of funds from my account to Minster Fudge's political account in the amount of twenty thousand galleons." Nick said and both Grimgrip and Helena looked at him in shock. He shook his head at their looks " No need to be alarmed , I will profit far more from this deal than Fudge will." he said and explained the gist of the situation. "Tying the Black family name to yourself for a measly twenty thousand galleons is indeed a good deal." Grimgrip said appreciatively.-
Goblins value profit over a great many things and this deal with Fudge to allow Sirius to be freed will bring a great deal of profit to Nick in the future. "I imagine you wish to see your vault then correct?" Grimgrip asked eagerly. Nick nodded and the Grimgrip rang a bell again and had a paper jockey goblin return the now organized paperwork to the appropriate place. Nick was then lead to the special cart that the goblins used to traverse the deep tunnels under the bank.-
It was a rather long cart ride to the Ravenclaw vault that was also known as vault 3 with it being amongst the first vaults set up by Gringotts. The vault door itself was a metal slab covered in so many enchantments that Nick grew pale barely sensing them with his magical senses. The sheer amount of defensive and offensive enchantments on the door made him instinctively want to stay far away from it instead of get closer to place his signet ring into the slot. Yes the key to the vault was the active lord ring on his finger and he needed to press the signet into the special indented to open the vault.-
Still he did so and marveled as the vault door rumbled and started falling apart into grains of sand that melded into the door frame seamlessly. "A bit dramatic for my tastes but impressive all the same." Nick said after the process was done and the small mountain of coin was shown within the vault. "Mother always had a flair for the dramatic." Helena said with a shrug. Walking into the vault Nick couldn't help but marvel at what he saw. Rows of ancient tomes , rare metals and even potions thought long lost held under preservation spells.-
The most impressive thing however was a large tree held in temporal stasis with white bark and golden leaves on it's branches as well as small flower buds. Appraising the tree with the system Nick had to stop his jaw from hitting the floor at what he read.
[Divine tree: Golden apple(Mana deprived/dying)
Grade: MYTHICAL
Abilities: Singular , holy , Life domain
MYTHICAL ABILITY: Golden apples: Grows golden apples that can cure any disease and extends ones lifespan by a single year each.]
'Where the fuck did she even find something like this!?' Nick thought in equal parts horror and curiosity after reading the appraisal. He couldn't be blamed either as this tree was likely the very same one that Herakles himself had to retrieve an apple from as part of his labors. -
This raised a big red flag in Nick's mind however that concerned him greatly 'Does this mean that gods actually existed at some point?' he thought worriedly. Sure there were myths and legends all over the word about gods but many wizards agreed it was likely just super powerful wizards in the end. But this tree's very existence hinted at the fact that gods did exist in the past but they were gone now which was not good news at all for Nick. If they left earth for whatever reason then nothing was stopping them from returning and if they had died he needed to figure out what could do such a thing.-
'Ugh , why does this world have to be so much more complicated than the books showed!?' he complained mentally but didn't think it unreasonable in reality. Even more concerning was the status of the tree's health next to it's name , mana deprived. 'Does this mean that there is simply not enough ambient mana to sustain the tree? Is that why the gods seemed to vanish as well?' he pondered but simply couldn't understand the situation from this tiny piece of the puzzle.
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