5 - Mystical Fruit, Compass Upgrade, and 2 Useless Treasures

The caravan stopped outside the city gates as the guards did a brief check.

The check wasn't for the items in the caravan, but the caravan itself.

As it was a somewhat reputable caravan, it got through quite quickly.

While the check was happening, I secretly checked on the compass map and found something quite alarming.

There were way too many yellow dots!

I was having a hard time believing that there were this many magical treasures like the kama here, since surely the knowledge of the existence of such things would be more commonplace if there were so many.

After counting, there were precisely 19 dots.

19 might not seem like a lot, but keep in mind that these were magical treasures with all sorts of unusual and bizarre effects.

Most of these, 9 of them to be exact, were in the royal treasury. Then, each of the 4 major families in the capital had 2, which was interesting, for a total of 8 between all of them, and then there were 2 more in the city in other places.

This made me realize there were probably undercurrents in the capital I had no clue about. Well, of course there would be, it's the capital of an empire. But unlike normally, where measly little ol' me would never get involved with such matters, I was thinking about how to steal all 19 treasures from right under everyones' noses.

After all, I had too big of a cheat with the key not having to be held, along with the compass. It'd be a shame not to use it.

I'd just have to make sure to be cautious enough to not get caught.

For now, I bid farewell to the caravan and looked for an inn to stay in for a few days while I got myself situated. 19 treasures, it was gonna take a while. I'd be here, in this city, for no small amount of time.

Booking the best room at a nearby inn for the next week, I didn't unpack. There was no real need to after all, I could essentially just treat the treasury as my main residence instead.

The only thing I had to have a place for outside of it was my body. So a room in an inn would work just fine.

Moving on to business.

I said I'd eat it when I got settled, and it was time.

Like I said, I had tested things, so it shouldn't be poisonous. Keyword should.

Taking it out again, I couldn't help but marvel at how the fruit seemed to make the surroundings dull in comparison to it. Even gold was no different.

Cautiously, I took a shallow bite out of it.

It tasted good. Not too good, just good.

I continued eating it until there was nothing left. It didn't have a core, like an apple. In fact, it was almost like it wasn't meant to have a place in it for seeds. It was just...meant to be eaten, it almost seemed like.

When I took the last bite, chewed, and swallowed, suddenly I felt nauseous. I sat down on the bed in the room, and my eyes started to turn heavy.

I laid down, and drifted off to sleep.

I had a dream. I dreamt of fractals and spiderwebs, and fractals made up of spiderwebs. In the distance was something bright and warm, but I couldn't make out what it was.

I tried to reach out to it, and the dream ended.

Opening my eyes, I saw the ceiling. Just, it looked a bit different from the ceiling I had seen before falling asleep.

It seemed...clearer, somehow?

Almost like my vision had gotten exponentially better.

Wait, no. Not almost like.

My vision had gotten exponentially better!

Gettimg up in a frenzy, I checked the rest of my body, only to find that no matter where I looked, what I examined or checked, every aspect of my physique seemed to have been strengthened.

My muscles were taut, my ears as sharp as my new eyes, my nose and tongue too.

My skin could feel the slightest ripple on its surface, and my mind, oh goodness my mind, instead of being overloaded by information, actually felt more relaxed and less burdened than ever.

It was clear and light.

It felt nice. Really nice.

Closing my eyes, I tried to focus my hearing, and I found that I could hear all the way down to the first floor.

I wondered if this was also a weakness of sorts, so I tried, somewhat apprehensively, clapping my hands loudly next to my ears, but the expected ringing sound did not emerge.

It seemed that although my ears had become more sensitive, they had not necessarily become more fragile.

After completely checking my body, I calmed myself down.

I would like to note that, although of little consequence to the current me who was single, that part down there had also gotten bigger. With it, my libido, which had been low in the first place, seemed to furgher settle into an equilibrium.

If before, I had still felt somewhat antsy about not having a wife, despite my belief that taking my time with such things would be better than marrying a random girl in a rural area, then now, that belief had fully acclimated.

I felt not an ounce of desire to immdeiately go out and find a woman for myself. One day, sure, that desire was still there, I wasn't suddenly asexual. But the immediate need for it that so tends to consume men was no longer present within me.

I felt a need to examine my physical limits more concretely, so I decided to go out and do some light exercises.

The result?

Astounding. I was leagues above the common soldier, comparable to even the most physically gifted of men, maybe even stronger. Well, not literally gifted, since blessings of the goddess existed in the theocracy, which were literally gifted physiques.

I suddenly felt an intense desire to gather more treasures, especially ones like the mystical fruit.

The kama had been nice, but this was a wholly different level.

With due haste, I hurriedly opened the treasure compass, only to find that upon opening it, instead of the usual blue map, it shone out a golden light.

When the light died down, the blue map was back, and nothing seemed to have changed except a "(3/10)" figure to the side of the map, and a little button on the side of the compass thay had somehow appeared.

Clicking on the button, it changed the map to a flat "screen", not that I knew what that was, and on the screen it said at the top:

[CHANGE LOG]

Under which it said:

[The numerical figure to the right of the treasure compass shows the number of treasures collected that were marked on it beforehand. Treasures not marked will not count. The compass itself counts as one. Maxing out the value will result in an upgrade. This is a log of the changes to the compass upon each successive iteration of upgrades.]

[Upgrade 1 (3 Treasures):

-Change Log can now be accessed via a button to the side of the compass.

-Treasures needed for next upgrade now shown.

-Map can be zoomed out more to find further treasures; map range increased. (10 KM ---> 30 KM)]

'...'

It could be upgraded?!

I mean yes, obviously, that's what it said, but it took a moment to settle in.

That meant the compass could potentially unlock who knew what kinds of perks with further upgrades.

The desire to gain more treasures once again grew within me to the brim.

Quickly looking at the map, I decided to check out the two dots that weren't either in one of the four families' vaults or the royal treasury.

***

Currently, I was having the vague realization that these treasures seemed to like to hide in rather inconspicuous places.

To the point where it was a wonder how the royal family managed to find 9 of them without a treasure compass.

1 or 2 could be luck. 9? I felt like there had to be something more to it.

Still, whatever method it was was severly limited, otherwise they'd have much more than 9.

In front of me was a bookstore.

The map clearly showed the treasure as being a certain book in the bookstore.

Walking in, there was a lazy checkout clerk reading while looking extremely bored.

She just groaned when I walked in, looked up, and went back to reading.

I didn't say much either. Getting straight to business, I went directly to where the book was.

I could see the inside of the treasury at all times in my mind's eye, and I had discovered a little hack the other day. I could open the compass within the treasury, and view it without ever needing to consider whether or not someone else would see.

With this, I could make sure to pick the right item that was the treasure, in any situation.

This was especially helpful right now, for choosing the right book amongst all the books on the shelves.

Taking it, the title was written in some unknown language, and there was a lock on the book. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't open it. Breaking the lock would have to wait for later, but as I would fimd out later, that wouldn't work either. The lock was unbreakable by conventional means.

Somewhat disappointed, I consoled myself that not every treasure would have its usage immediately made obvious to me.

Since I was out, I decided to check out the other treasure as well.

It was nearby, which seemed an odd coincidence. Before leaving, I asked the clerk where she had gotten the book from, but she said she just worked there, and only the owner knew.

The owner, of course, was regularly out. It seemed the universe did not want me to understand a singular morsel about this book, or its origins.

Leaving the bookstore, I walked to a series of houses, and up to one in particular.

Well, this was a conundrum.

The treasure would require breaking and entering.

Perhaps I could manage to trick them into letting me inside?

The treasure itself was a quill inside the house. It was located in the living room. Considering the casual placement, the owner couldn't possibly know its real value.

Well neither did I, technically.

But I at least knew it was too valuable to be left in the living room.

Knocking on the door, the owner of the house, a short man with a strong build appeared before me.

"Whatdoyeneed?"

He had the most unintelligible accent, but I barely made out his words were "what do you need?"

I told him I had some business to discuss with him, and if I could come inside to talk.

He invited me in rather innocently. He seemed to be someone who lived a rather simple life, and didn't bother himself with casting doubts onto people.

Probably a woodworker, blacksmith, or something similar.

Walking to the living room, I immediately threw the golden key onto the quill, causing it to disappear. Of course, I made it look like I was stretching.

Since I was far from the table, the man didn't suspect a thing. He didn't even seem to notice the quill was gone.

Looks like I had been cautious for nothing.

I suddenly stopped and took on a serious expression, and told him I had suddenly remembered something I had to do immediately. I told him I may or may not come back, and promptly left.

He was left there in a bit of a daze. It was quite comical.

Returning to my room at the inn, I tried a few different methods to break the book lock, including going into the treasury and smashing the kama into it at full force, to no avail. It's worth noting the book was also as sturdy as the lock on it.

Giving up on that, I looked towards the quill. I tried writing with it, and besides the fact that it was a very well made quill, there was nothing special.

I tried a lot of different things with the quill, too, before giving up on it as well.

Exasperated, I at least felt better seeing the compass number at 5/10.

Still, I thought, it would be really nice if I could find a treasure that told me what other treasures did, or at least gave a hint.

Before ending for the day, I was playing around with the kama and the quill when I had the absurd thought to launch a blade beam at the quill.

I don't know where the thought came from, but I tried it, assuming the quill, being a treasure, wouldn't break so easily, which in hindsight was a really bad assumption, and to my surprise, the quill glowed a bit before changing color.

Before it was black, but now it was a mix of blue and dark brown.

Writing with it again, it wrote in glowing blue characters instead of black ink, and afger writing about a page of random text, it switched back to black all of a sudden.

The text still seemed to do nothing besides glow blue. It would continue glowing blue for 24 hours, before fading also to black.

Excited at the breakthrough but let down once again by the lack of additional effects, I got out of the treasury and prepared to go to sleep. I had just gotten here today, and it was already past dusk by the time I had gotten back from getting the quill.

As I drifted off in the unexpectedly comfortable inn bed (must have been because it was the best room), I dreamt of more fractals made of spiderwebs, this time the background glow more clear, slightly.

It was blue now, and behind the blue was a black silhouette. It looked weird, not exactly human, not exactly not.

It seemed to be wanting to say something to me, but I couldn't hear it or make out the mouth movements. I had the vague impression that it was a woman, but I wasn't sure.

Slowly, the fractals and silhouette disappeared, and were replaced with jet black nothingness for the rest of the night.

Looks like I would be having some pretty weird dreams for the next little while.