After chatting with Yuki for a few more minutes about nothing really important, Aurora left her soul, and her consciousness returned to her physical body.
Opening her eyes, she completely ignored Rejoke's confused and baffled expression and began to snoop around the tomb. The room was filled to the brim with various treasures, and even if most of them were useless to her currently, who knew if there would be some hidden gem among the 'trash'?
'Hmmm, various fighting techniques, martial arts, and even affinity training? Does something like affinity training even exist?' Aurora pondered as she looked through the various books and ancient scrolls lying around.
"Not sure, to be honest. At least I never heard of such things existing. Besides, these scrolls are useless to the current us, not to mention that we have no way of taking them." Yuki commented lightly, to which Aurora merely shrugged.
The small white fox looked in every corner of the room, looking for anything at least a bit useful. Even if the gold and jewels looked nice, they were of no use to Aurora currently. I mean, she's a fox at the end of the day.
But while gold may not be useful, there were plenty of other things that could. And it seems that Aurora hit the jackpot just now.
In her paw was a small, pitch-black crystal. The small stone was so black that it seemed to absorb all the light that touched it. The crystal wasn't an affinity crystal by any means; it was something much more special.
[Special-grade Weapon Crystal]
- Grade: Special
– A crystal with the ability to transform into a weapon most fit for the user to wield. The user who wishes to use this crystal must inject it with their mana, which will cause the weapon to transform. The weapon will be a special-grade weapon, and the user cannot choose the weapon's form. Once transformed, this crystal cannot transform again and will stay in its weapon form.
'What even is a special grade weapon? Besides, I can't really use weapons, now can I?' Aurora sighed dejected. The crystal seemed to be a powerful item, but unfortunately, it wasn't one she could really use currently.
"Still, we better hold onto it. Even if I have no idea what a special-grade weapon is, I'm sure it's nothing to scoff at." Yuki interjected, looking at the crystal in Aurora's paw. Her eyes were basically sparkling inside Aurora's soul, so it was pretty obvious she was excited.
'I planned to do that anyway. Even if I can't currently use it, there's no way I'll just leave it here.' Aurora smiled greedily, trying to put the crystal into a fake weapon slot.
Surprisingly, the crystal disappeared from her paw just as she wanted. This meant that while it wasn't exactly a weapon, it still counted as one due to its special properties.
With a light smile on her face after seeing the weapon inside her system interface, Aurora continued to look around the tomb for any more good stuff she might find. Surprisingly, it didn't take her long to find yet another great treasure.
'Another necklace? I already have one though.' The small fox clicked her tongue, and using her Inspect, she looked up the necklace's description.
'Tsk, this is my current one, huh?' After reading the information about the necklace she just found, Aurora felt a bit bitter in her heart as she clung to the simple necklace on her neck with her paw.
[Poison Fang Necklace]
- Grade: Rare
– A simple necklace made out of the fangs of a highly poisonous rank 1 monster. Its poisonous properties make the weaver's poison even deadlier.
[When equipped:
- Increases the wearer's intelligence by 20 points and agility by 15 points.
- Slightly increases the wearer's poison affinity.
'So the necklace I had was actually a rare-grade item, just like my earrings? Even then, it's slightly weaker, providing fewer stats, and it also doesn't increase my affinity with an attribute as much.' Aurora thought when she saw the description of her current necklace for the first time.
"It actually makes sense. Think about it. Even with ranks, there are beings more powerful than others. Items might be the same. There probably are weaker and stronger items of the same grade." Yuki spoke her mind, and Aurora found her words to be very logical, so she said nothing else.
'Even if it pains me to let go of such a good treasure, there's simply no comparison between the two.' Aurora sighed with a heavy heart as she once again glanced at the entry of her new necklace.
[Necklace of Polarity]
- Grade: Very Rare
– A special necklace that wields the power of two opposite elements. While its power is undisputable, not many will be able to use this neckalce to its full extent.
[When equipped:
- Increases both the wearer's intelligence and mana by 30 points.
- Increases the wearer's ice affinity and fire affinity.
- Allows the weaver to use the skill: Magical Finale once every 7 days.
[Magical Finale]
- Level: Max
- Grade: Exclusive
- Skill type: Active
- Attribute type: Magical
– A powerful skill that grants the user a burst of magical power, but at a cost.
[On activation:
- Increases the strength of the next magical attack the user uses by 50%. The strength gets doubled if the attack the user uses is an attack of the ice or fire attribute.
- The user will lose all of their mana, with the limit of 1000 points, after using an attack empowered by this skill.
"Well, you are right when you say that this Necklace of Polarity or whatever is much more powerful than the necklace we currently have." Yuki pointed out, and after Aurora said nothing, she continued.
"Not only does it grant almost double the stat points, it also buffs our two main affinities by what is probably a decent amount, and on top of all that, it also grants us a special skill. Besides, it's not like we have to let go of our old necklace. We can just give it to Rejoke!" Yuki exclaimed at the end, seemingly proud of her idea.
'That's... actually a great idea!' Aurora's eyes went slightly wide when she heard Yuki's suggestion, her eyes lighting up.
"I know, right? I'm so great to think of such a thing." Yuki said proudly, puffing up her small chest, which made her look incredibly cute.
Aurora simply rolled her eyes at the behavior of the small fox inside her soul. Ignoring her blatant narcissism, Aurora walked over to Rejoke, who merely looked at her with confused and slightly questioning eyes.
Ignoring the wolf's gaze as well, she jumped onto his back, took the simple fang necklace off her neck, and wrapped it around the wolf's much thicker neck. The item immediately enlarged itself to fit the size of its new weaver, which allowed Aurora to easily fit the necklace onto the black wolf's neck.
Before Rejoke even had the time to question what was happening, he felt himself becoming faster and his magic becoming stronger. Being as smart as he was, he immediately understood that the source of that power was the strange thing around his neck.
He already had the bracelet he had received after defeating that Lava Golem, so he naturally knew that these strange items could somehow make one stronger. That's why his gaze immediately turned from confused to grateful when he realized that his alpha had just given him something great.
Unbeknownst to the black wolf, the only reason Aurora gave him her necklace was because she had found a much stronger one for herself.
After getting off Rejoke's back, Aurora wasted no time and quickly put the beautiful silver necklace around her tiny neck. Well, the system did since she just equipped it through her equipment interface.
Immediately, she felt herself becoming stronger, her soul, which was already full of mana, now brimming with the magical energy even more than before. The necklace was truly powerful, as it was a combination of her two earrings. The difference was that the necklace traded some stat points for an active skill.
Just as Aurora was about to close up all the system windows she had opened up, she had received a new message from the system, one she didn't expect in the least.
[You have activated a set bonus by wearing three pieces of equipment from the same set.
- Set bonus: All stats +5 and increases the power of magical attacks by 5%.]
'A set bonus? Something like that exists!?' Aurora exclaimed, her opening wide as she stared at the message in front of her.
"That is... unexpected. But I mean, it's good rather than anything, right?" Yuki also chimed in, and just from her tone alone, it was pretty clear how shocked she was.
The thing was, while quite immature and childish, Yuki had good control over her emotions. Most of the time, she would mask her true feelings with her playful nature. But at times, the emotions she felt were intense enough for her not to be able to pretend, such as when the two talked about their mother.
Just now, the last thing she or Aurora had expected was to suddenly receive another boost in strength just by equpping the already powerful necklace. The reason for her shock was the complete suddenness of it happening, not giving her much time to process things.
'You're right. Let's not think too hard about it. It's just a nice bonus, and I sure am not one to complain.' In the end, Aurora merely said dismissively, deciding to let go of the matter.
'More importantly, that's about it from here, no?' Changing the subject complete, the white fox looked around the tomb once more, trying to spot any obvious spots she might have missed and forgotten to check.
"I think so. We checked just about anything, so if we haven't found anything else, then it's probably hidden too well for us to find anyway." Yuki also put the previous matter aside and focused on the problem at hand.
'Well, if that's the case, then my question is, how do we leave this place?' Just as she wanted to leave, realization hit her like a cinder block to the head, causing Aurora to ask in her mind.
"Beats me. If I'm being honest, I have no idea. At first, I thought we would just leave the way we came from, but then I kind of realized that the portal that led here closed, so... we're kind of stranded." Yuki muttered, sighing helplessly at the end.
Just now, she was finally reunited with her long-lost other half, only to now get trapped inside her mother's tomb without seemingly any way out.
'Tsk, I refuse to believe there's no way to leave this place.' Clicking her tongue, Aurora said in a defiant tone and began to once again look around the tomb.
However, even after looking around for what was probably another 30 minutes and after making several circles around the room, Aurora failed to find anything that might help them leave this place.
'Urgh, is there seriously no way to get out of here!?' Now, normally Aurora wasn't one to lose her cool, at least not quickly. However, right now, her emotions were a mess.
A bit too much has happened in the last few hours. Not only did she meet her mother, then formed a soul connection with her 'sister', now they even got trapped! And considering the emotional rollercoaster she went through in such a short span of time, her nerves had just about reached their limit.
"Actually, what's the deal with that shrine?" But before Aurora could completely lose her temper, Yuki pointed out a thing Aurora had been ignoring this whole time.
'Oh, that? That's just the place mother's remnant came out of. There's no way that thing is th- no, actually, how did we not think of that before!?' Aurora facepalmed and quickly walked over to the small shrine.
Before Yuki could even ask any more questions, Aurora touched the wooden shring with her paw, disappearing from the tomb.
Seeing his alpha disappear suddenly, Rejoke's eyes went wide, and he quickly rushed over to the shrine, doing the same as Aurora and touching the small wooden structure.
Now, back to Aurora. As soon as she touched the shrine, her vision momentarily blurred before she appeared in a very familiar snowy forest with blue-leaved trees.
'That was it the whole time!? Are you fucking kidding me!?' Aurora really, really wanted to scream and yell right now, but the only things that left her mouth were soft squeels.
And so Aurora had conquered her first dungeon. Where will her path take her next time? Who knew? Only time would tell.