Chapter 19: Hermetic Vault II

‘Really?’ the Incarnate thought. He blinked twice while continuing to fondle his back, tracing the grooves in his flesh. ‘So Unique Qualities don’t have any cost for Spirit Essence at all.’

The thought really made the Incarnate happy. He hadn’t been expecting that. It was understandable that he hadn’t, actually. Thankfully, the glowing tablet was finally helping him put the pieces together.

Curiously though, it seemed the tablet – which he considered a representative of whatever managed this whole place, Prospect For Reincarnation – wasn’t drilling an innate sense of understanding in him for everything he wasn’t familiar with anymore like it had done when he first saw everything about his properties.

Perhaps this was to make him learn through experience instead of babying him like before when, admittedly, it had been imperative that his lagging, mundane mind understand what all these concepts meant at a basic level.

‘The difference between these two things… I suppose it makes sense. But I can only learn one Far Ji?’

The Incarnate felt his spirits slump a bit. His aching muscles also seemed to grow a little more painful.

According to the tablet, while one could obtain an unlimited number of Acquired Abilities, only one Unique Quality was allowed per individual.

The term ‘allowed’ which was emphasized for some reason did make the Demonling suspicious, but he didn’t think there was much to unravel from it.

These were the rules, apparently.

A part of the Incarnate wished all this information had been made known to him before he picked the first Far Ji he had seen if it was going to be the last he could acquire, but he quickly threw the thought away.

‘Taking into account how bizarre and terrifying this place can get, I don’t think I could have passed on this even if I knew. Besides, from what it looks like, Far Ji aren’t easy to find, unlike Kanva. I can learn Kanva from any competent enemy, but I don’t think there’s going to be an abundance of secret rooms like this in the future,’ he thought.

The Incarnate squinted as he read through the text again.

‘Hmm. So instead of a cost of Spirit Essence, Far Ji have limits to how you use them. Let’s see. The Hermetic Vault has two of these Limits.’

The first Limit was that only five items could be added to the vault per day.

After a few seconds of thought, the Incarnate came to a conclusion on this.

‘Yes, that’s an annoying Limit.’

This restriction was going to force him to be very careful about what items he put into the vault.

The Hermetic Vault was an invisible and unreachable space where he could store his items without having to worry about their weight or quantity.

If there was a restriction on how much he could add per day, it was only natural to think that there would be times in the future when there were many appealing treasures and tools in sight, but he would have to leave the majority behind.

The Incarnate winced at the thought.

The second Limit restricted the Incarnate to only having a maximum of three items out of the vault at a time.

This posed a similar challenge to the first Limit, though, for now, the Incarnate thought it wasn’t all that bad. He didn’t have that much stuff to carry. Besides, it didn’t seem like he couldn’t switch between items that he really needed at the moment and those that he did.

The Demonling hummed in thought and then walked towards the wall where the Valiant Subject’s Ward was planted in. It had sunk in deep after he hurled it at the armored guard with Sundering Bunt. He pulled it out and sighed.

‘Let’s see. How do I do this?’

The moment the Incarnate thought about interacting with the Hermetic Vault, he felt the skin on his back pulse, and everything in his sight changed.

He was no longer in the oval room. Well, he was, but it felt like a part of him had been extricated from it and brought here.

As for where ‘here’ was, it was a cubical room that was a lot smaller than the Incarnate had thought it to be. It was roughly 1,000 cubic meters, even in every dimension – naturally.

‘Well, for a place that doesn’t exist, in a way, it’s pretty big I suppose…’ the Incarnate reevaluated.

The space didn’t exactly look special. It was made of silver metal engraved with a familiar symbol.

It was the same one that had been oozing Spirit Essence behind the atrophied corpse, albeit a little different.

Instead of seven stylized octagons feeding into each other, there were only five, and across them, was what looked like a minimalistic design of a black tree trunk, but with both ends featuring long roots.

The Incarnate immediately felt for the symbol on his back.

‘It’s the same…’ he thought.

Curious.

So, the symbol was to represent the Hermetic Vault.

With a shift in his will, the Incarnate found himself back in the ovular room.

He then looked at the Valiant Subject’s Ward. It vanished in the next moment, and the Demonling ‘felt’ it settle in the Vault.

He then willed it to come out and it appeared in his hand again, just like before.

‘Hmm?’

The Incarnate inspected the shield.

He found it to not have changed, except for the fact that it seemed to have a certain energy signature around it that he only managed to perceive through his skin. It was different from Spirit Essence. It wasn’t something he could see.

He thought about it for several moments and…

‘Oh, I see. If there is a Limit on things I add to the vault per day, then that must mean the vault has items it considers old and those it considers new. Since I already added the shield, it won’t be counted when I choose to store it in the vault again,’ the Demonling thought.

This made sense.

The Incarnate wanted to add all his weapons to the vault immediately, but he decided against it for now. First, he wanted to learn all he could about the Vault through the tablet’s text.

‘There’s the Definitions. I remember the tablet mentioned this when it explained how Incarnation Points are used.’

Just as he thought about it, the tablet added on:

[Definitions are extensions of a Far Ji’s capabilities decided by the user]

[Unlike Kanva, Far Ji can be improved. By expending Incarnation Points, a user can broaden what their Far Ji can do, but only within the bounds of its Limits, its name, and original description]

The Incarnate narrowed his eyes.

Broadening what a Far Ji can do?

‘Interesting. But how can I expand the capabilities of something like a storage vault? Does that mean I can increase its size or something like that?’ Incarnate ^8001 thought. That sounded good, but it also made the Incarnate start to feel sour about only having one Far Ji, and one that wasn’t really good for combat.

The tablet continued.

[The number of Definitions increase with the grade of the Far Ji.

Rare Far Ji only have 2;

Legendary Far Ji have 4;

Divine Far Ji have 8]

[The cost of adding Definitions with Incarnation Points starts with half the cost used to acquire the Far Ji in question.

Rare Far Ji cost 5 Incarnation to acquire, and thus their first Definition costs 2 Incarnation Points, with the next costing double;

Legendary Far Ji cost 10 Incarnation Points to acquire, and thus their first Definition costs 5 Incarnation Points, with the next ones costing double the price of the last;

Divine Far Ji cost 20 Incarnation Points to acquire, and thus their first Definition costs 10 Incarnation Points, with the next ones costing double the price of the last]

The Incarnate frowned and rubbed his temples.

He knew the tablet was starting to give information when it was most relevant, but this was too much at once.

It took him two minutes to finally feel like he understood everything.

‘I guess it isn’t all that difficult to understand. Hermetic Vault cost me 10 Incarnation Points. If I want to add the first Definition, it will cost me half that. The second will cost 10, the next 20, and the last…40 Points…’ he thought uncomfortably. ‘Divine Far Ji are even worse. I can’t tell if I should be happy about this or not.’

The Incarnate wondered if getting more than 10 Incarnation Points at a time was possible.

‘I don’t think I should think too deeply about this right now. I’ll think about it when I feel I really need to.’

The Incarnate cast aside the more complex details about Far Ji and instead focused on the corpse of the armored figure.

Its head was gone at this point, and its body was prostrating before the large blue blob.

The Demonling went over to it and grabbed the katana in its hand.

He might not have learned an Acquired Ability from this enemy, but he still won a prize.