Abel decided to move onto Prince Adolf's necklace. It was a violet-gold piece with a blue gemstone in it. When he scanned it with his power of the Will, he could tell that it was an extraordinary magical item.
The person who made this was pretty thoughtful. By scanning it with his power of the Will, Abel could tell that a bunch of messages that were written on it, including the name of its creator, the instructions for how to use it, and some things to be cautious of when using it.
The name of this piece was the "ice dragon's protection necklace." Its ability was passive, which was both extremely rare and precious. No activation was needed to use it. It would switch itself up automatically once certain conditions had been reached. In other words, it could protect its wielder's life even when, say, he was asleep or something.
For the ice dragon's protection necklace to be activated, one of the two conditions had to be reached: Either, the "velocity" or "pressure" that its wielder was experiencing would become "detrimental" to his safety, when there was a drop in the health point of that wielder. Apart from the powerful protection barrier that it could create, it could also unleash an ice-element counterattack that would freeze whoever the wielder was attacked by.
Obviously, something this powerful had a certain "limit" to it. The ice dragon's protection necklace could only be used three times a day. Still, that was more than enough to handle most situations Abel might encounter.
Abel was thinking back to when he killed Prince Adolf. When he jabbed his Jade Tan Do into Adolf's body, he remembered that that was a protective barrier that was blocking his blade. It was probably this necklace that did that. If the Jade Tan Do was not poisoned, Prince Adolf might be given a chance to unleash a counterattack at him.
More luckily for Abel, the Jade Tan Do had a "freeze immunity" attribute to it. If it didn't, he might just be dead right now. The necklace's barrier could, technically, freeze him without giving him any chance to make an escape.
After scanning the ice dragon's protection necklace for a few more times, Abel was certain that it was safe to wear it on himself. Just to be safe, he decided to wear it underneath all the clothes that he was wearing, just where it was touching his skin. It was meant to be a life-saving tool, something that he mustn't let his enemies know about. He didn't have to worry about what happened after it was activated, though. Most people wouldn't know what an ice dragon's protection necklace was, anyways.
As for the belt, it was an extremely luxurious piece with three unique gemstones branded on it. Abel was a Master Blacksmith, so he knew quite a lot about gemstones. It didn't take him more than a look to know what these stones were.
The first stone was the dustproof gemstone. It was meant to keep any dust or powder away from the wielder's body. It could be useful in a fight if the enemy was sprinkling poisoned powders around.
The second stone was the Holy-Light gemstone. It's not related to the Holy Light in any way, but it did share the same properties, and that was to keep any ghost or spiritual attack away. If a ghost tried to possess Abel, this stone could do a lot of damage to it the moment it went inside his body.
And there was the waterproof gemstone. From its name alone, it's easy to tell that it was meant to keep water away from its wielder.
Those three gemstones were all very precious. They were actually very well rumored in the blacksmith industry. They were rare, and they were all very practical in advanced-level combat. As for the belt, Abel couldn't sense any mana from it, but he could tell that there was a lot of historical value to it.
Not that it mattered. After taking the three gemstones away, Abel decided that the belt was worth nothing to him. He's already found great use of the gemstones, though. When his body stopped growing, he would use all his efforts into making his own armor set, and maybe that's where those pieces would go.
In fact, he didn't have to wait for his growth spurt to end. If he mastered the crafting techniques of the dark world, he could start making the armor piece now. Unlike ordinary armors, armors in the dark world would adjust to its wielder's body size. He would make the armor into any size he wished, and it would still fit whatever body size he had.
When Abel took the three gemstones for himself, he saw that there were a few sign cards on the belt. There were an identity card and a control card for a city-sized large defensive circle. There were also some other ones that he didn't know about. Since all these cards were labeled with the identity of their owner, he couldn't put them into his portal bag.
Abel had no use of these sign cards. If anything, if he tried to do anything with them, whoever was going after him would know where he was.
Finally, there was a portal bag. When he scanned its inside with his power of the Will, he could see that it was at least five times larger than an ordinary portal bag. This was about as good as it could. Only the portal bracelet could be compared to a portal bag this top-notch.
Inside this bag, there were a hundred cards that were just like the magic gold card. They were all neatly lined up together. Each of the cards had a number on them. When Abel took out one of them, he could see that there were one million gold coins inside. He also realized something else. This card was made of the exact same material as the magic gold card that he had.
Abel had zero understanding of how the financial industry operated in the Holy Continent. Still, since there was so much money in this card, he decided to take the risk to transfer the money into his own card.
He had two magic gold cards of his own, one for him as a human and one for him as an elf. After transferring most of his money into his elven one, there were now only ten thousand gold coins in his human one. When he connected the human card to the one he just picked up, there was now one million and ten thousand gold coins in his original account.
This card from Prince Adolf was the same as an anonymous, password-free bank card. It was easy to know this because nothing was stopping Abel from taking all the amount away from it. Unlike genuine magic gold cards, there was no identify-check or any sort of security measure. Everything could be done manually.
It was the first time Abel saw something this (worryingly) convenient. In fact, these cards were meant for handling illegitimate trade deals that were done in Jochberg City. They were meant for the super VIP clients of the Continental Union of Trade, which was not something that Abel could have the knowledge of.
If there were one million gold coins in one card alone, and there were about a hundred cards inside this portal bag...there were a hundred million! Abel wasn't exactly a money-lover, but calculating this kind of number made his hair stand up for a bit. When he scanned the portal bag again, he realized that all the cards had the same number. It was one hundred million in total. There was no doubt about that.
Maybe that's why Grand Duke Francisco was so sure that it was Arvid who killed his son. Maybe Prince Adolf did, at some point, reveal this wealth to Arvid. If that was true, the old assassin would have all the motives he needed to commit the murder. Abel knew that that wasn't the case, but the story just seemed very convincing now.
Instead of transferring more gold coins into his own account, Abel transferred the one million gold coins back into Prince Adolf's card. After that, he placed all the anonymous magic gold cards into his kong kong spiritual beast bag. That's the only safe place he could think of right now. If he wanted to use all this money in the future, now was not the right time to do anything extra with it.
Apart from these anonymous magic gold cards, there was also a dark green court dress. Just by its looks alone, Abel could tell that there was no way for him to wear it. This court dress was called the "wind enchantment court dress," something that was very iconic to the elves. Not only could it enhance the effects of wind-element spells, but it could also cast the "cyclone protection" spell to protect its wearer from harm.
Druid spells were good in their own way, but they were much less practical and powerful than wizard spells. That being said, if Abel was going to strengthen himself with druid-type gears, he would prefer to be picky and choose something that's so good that it couldn't be replaced. The wind enchantment court dress was not what he wanted, in this regard. Also, it was a legendary elven item, something too famous to be used in the public.
Legendary magical items weren't legendary just because of how good they were. They also had to have a long history. It could be that they were associated with some historical figures, fighters that were good enough to be remembered many generations later. This court dress was one such case. There was more to offer in its reputation than its practicality.
Abel shooked his head. Again, there was only one place for this court dress, and that was his kong kong spiritual beast bag. It was also the same for the ancient bows and elven long sword he found. They were not as bad as weapons, but they simply weren't good enough for his future guests. It was for the best if they all went to his personal collection.
Not all items were a disappointment, though. The scrolls were actually pretty useful. There were five "volcano" spell scrolls, two "teleportation" scrolls, and fifteen other intermediate spell scrolls.
Jochberg City was, truly, a place blessed with wealth. The more Abel looked into those scrolls, the more he became scared of what might happen if he failed to kill Adolf instantaneously. Luckily, he went for Adolf's vertebrate at the time. He decided to immobilize him at the start, which saved him from having to fight a very, potentially speaking, devastating battle.