The Achievement Junkie

As Jack stared at his storage bracer, Maura's eyes were twinkling. Her dad had mentioned that Jack found an ancient hero's tomb in Ponlinne, and she was extremely curious to know what it was.

She had never had many chances to explore the world or go off on adventures. Since Jack was there with so many spoils of adventure, Maura wanted to see such treasures for herself. It was normal for her adventurous side to live through what her father brought home, but she felt even more intrigued since Jack was involved.

"Hey Jack, can I see the treasures too?" asked Maura.

Jack looked at her puppy dog eyes and shook his head while smiling. "If I show you this, then you have to keep everything you see a secret. Some things inside this ring may be beyond anything you've imagined, so I'm not even comfortable sharing that information with your old man. He may tell the association and I'm not sure if they'd be willing to watch me horde so many valuable items."

Thinking carefully about Jack's words, Maura nodded and looked at Jack's bracer in excitement.

Jack removed the chest and surprised Maura. Without warning, he opened it up and found it filled to the brim with gold.

"So much gold…" Maura was mesmerized. Her dad always tried to hoard gold away, but she had never seen so much at once out in the open.

Examining the box closely, Jack paid close attention to the box's design. Finding similar chests, Jack pulled out three other chests with the same pattern.

Like he expected, Jack found that the three chests were also filled with gold. He stored them and pulled out another half dozen chests, each with the same design and with the same amount of gold inside.

Maura was in awe and was speechless. She couldn't guess how much gold was in a single chest, let alone ten of them.

"Let's check these ones." Since all ten of those chest shared designs and contents, Jack pulled out another half dozen chest but with a new pattern.

Opening it slowly, a smile showed on Jack's face. "That's what I thought. Maura, do you know what kind of coin this is?"

She shook her head slowly, letting Jack continue explaining.

"Have you ever heard of platinum?"

"That's all platinum?!" She had never seen it, but Maura knew about the ancient currency worth ten times the value of gold. "All of these are… filled with platinum?"

"Yup," answered Jack, opening each chest to prove it. "Now that I've finally got some cash, let's try the other chests."

Most of the chests were gold and platinum, but Jack was guessing that most of the chests had decent items. He didn't have high hopes to find too many high-level items in those chests since the highest level items were all found on the statues. Luckily for him, he already knew what all of those are, so he wouldn't have to show Maura anything. She was already overwhelmed, so Jack laughed when he pictured her reaction to a lv. 75 or lv. 85 weapon.

Excluding money, there were six chests leftover and they all share the same design. Wanting to not waste time, Jack pulled out all six and opened the first one before Maura had a chance to react.

"More items and their levels aren't too bad," stated Jack as he looked at everything inside.

"Aren't too bad…" Again, she was speechless. Maura couldn't tell what level those weapons were because they were too high-level for her, yet Jack was treating them like they were accessories for an outfit.

"With these, we shouldn't have to worry too much about getting new items as we level up." Just then, Jack noticed a sword inside one of the chests. As it gave off a frosty air, Jack smiled softly and picked it up. "Here, this is for you."

Brought back to reality by Jack's words, Maura takes a closer look at what was in Jack's hand. When she realized it was a magical sword, Maura stuck out her hand to reject his offer. "No way! Do you know how much a sword like that would cost?! And you use swords too, so you keep it."

"This is yours. If you're coming with me, then your equipment needs to be at least this good." Jack forced it into her hands, eager to make sure she had the best equipment to keep herself safe.

"But Jack… You know I can't let my dad see this…"

"You know, if you're coming with me then you'll have to tell him at some point. Till then, just store it. Besides, it's a lv. 25 glacier shortsword. You can't use yet anyway."

"Jack… I can't do that. I don't have anything to store it in," replied Maura. She looked away, embarrassed to not have such a simple item.

"Let me guess, your old man?"

"Yeah."

"Fine, then… Here, take this necklace." Without a second thought, Jack pulled out a storage necklace from one of the chests.

It was much more extravagant than the usual storage necklace, being made from gold and sapphires; it was obviously a cash item some player purchased and left behind in the guild. It was also a high-tier storage item. Maura would never need to worry about running out of storage.

Maura was too startled by the sword's cold energy that she didn't realize what else Jack had given her till it was already in her other hand. "Jack…"

"There, now you won't need to worry about storage. With that, I bet it's better than your old man's," joked Jack.

"Can you… help me put it on?" asked Maura, batting her eyes enticingly.

Jack blinked and quickly gave in. "Fine, give it here."

Carefully, Jack put it around Maura's neck. He paused for a moment as she stared into his eyes. They were quite close, close enough for Maura to feel his breath on her face, which had startled her, causing her to meet his gaze.

Coughing to clear his throat, Jack finished with the necklace's clasp and backed away.

"Thank you, Jack." Maura was admiring her new necklace and her new sword, letting Jack have a moment to inspect the chests without her wandering eyes.

At that moment, Jack stored a lot of the weapons that were classified as mid-level in "A Hero's Tale," meaning all weapons between lv. 30 and lv. 60.

Not much was left for him to see, but a few velvet sacks caught Jack's attention. Opening one gingerly, Jack's eyes went wide and he took a deep breath to contain his sudden rush of excitement.

"What's in there?" It was easy for Maura to recognize that whatever was in the bag was extremely valuable.

"This… This changes everything!" Clutching the bag tightly, Jack shouted with joy.

"Why? What is it?"

"EXP pots!"

Giving Jack a strange look, Maura asked, "What are EXP pots?"

Jack returned her strange look and realized that such things were probably extremely rare, if not legendary in modern times.

"Listen carefully, and never mention any of these to ANYONE, do you understand?" When Jack saw her nod, he continued. "To be specific, these are low-level EXP pots, the most common kind. They're only usable by people under lv. 30, so they're useless for your old man and the others. But for us, they give you massive amounts of EXP and practically let you cheat. With enough of them, you can instantly reach lv. 30."

Jack didn't bother explaining the other kinds of EXP pots. Of course, there were also mid-level EXP pots, but they were mythic-tier items rarely found in-game from boss drops. High-level EXP pots were practically nonexistent, so Jack was never planning on searching for any.

"Instantly reach lv. 30?! That's impossible!"

"Nope. I'd prove it to you right now, but now's not the right time to use them. After we come back from the Polt Federation, then we can leave on our own for Trodar. That would be a better time to use them," explained Jack. "If we use them now, it would be way too suspicious since I'm about to meet the association high-ups. When we're alone on the trip to Trodar, people will already expect us to be leveling up so they won't be too suspicious when we arrive in Trodar as lv. 30's."

"Wait, why are we going to Trodar?" asked Maura. She knew a bit about the war going on there, so it caught her attention.

"I'll explain that after we get back from the Polt Federation, till then…" Jack stored everything else, happy to know he had plenty of money to spend and items to trade during his time in the Polt Federation. Some people would try to save all the gold and platinum, but Jack only saw it all as a necessary tool for him to acquire what he would need.

"Let's get back to the others, they're probably wondering why we've been gone for so long," stated Jack as he moved toward the door.

As he turned the handle and pulled the door open, a person who was leaning against it on the other side fell on top of Jack. Momentarily, he was blind and only knew that he was holding something soft.