Discovery

Once out of sight of the other mages, the grin on Krave's face disappeared, and he muttered to himself as he shuffled back to his desk. He motioned for Elizabeth to put the marble on the desk and asked Christoph and Valentina to sit.

"Before we can start discussing terms, there is a... problem, I suppose. Something that the other mages and people who can't keep a secret can hear," Krave explained, looking to Vaud and the others. Elizabeth nodded and ushered the others away, leaving Krave, Christoph, and Valentina alone at the desk. Krave took out a wooden staff and tapped it twice on the floor, activating a barely visible magic circle.

Along the outside of the magic circle, thick white energy rose from the ground and formed a cylinder, sealing off sight and sound from the outside. Krave regarded the fist-sized marble with a strange look, contemplating how to broach the topic, his giddiness from before nowhere to be seen.

"What's the problem?" Christoph asked, "You offered such a high price; surely it shouldn't be that bad."

Krave let out a dry chuckle, "Well, it may not be a problem for you, as long as you sold it off completely, but... How much do you know about the materials?"

Christoph and Valentina looked at each other, then shrugged, "Nothing, really, that's why we brought it to be identified. But we were hoping the silvery stuff inside was Sacred Silver so that it would be worth more," Valentina said.

Krave nodded, "You assumed correct. The entire nucleus is Sacred Silver," he confirmed, eliciting a gasp from Valentina, "But the problem isn't the nucleus. It's the other material."

"You mean the glass?" Christoph asked, wondering why glass would pose problems.

The old demon tapped the marble, "It's not glass, and it's worth far more than the Sacred Silver; anything come to mind?"

The elf and sheep-woman were silent, contemplating the marble for a while before Valentina's eyes opened wide, "Are you saying it's Lapis Crystal?" Christoph couldn't recognize the material at first but took a sharp breath when he heard the name. Krave nodded.

"But then why is it a problem? It should be a good thing we found it, right?" Valentina asked, still confused.

Krave sighed, "I suppose you don't know much about the material, then. No matter, not many people do. Lapis Crystal is rarely found in ancient ruins that have yet to be turned into dungeons. There have never been any cases where it has been found in an active dungeon. This is assumed to either be chance or that dungeon cores consume the crystal to grow stronger," he explains.

The old demon then picks up the marble, "Now, we have a few samples here and there, and indeed it looks like ordinary glass at a glance, but under scrutiny with a magnifying glass, one can tell. Another quality is that you can inject energy into Lapis Crystal, and it will function as a sort of battery. The problem with this item is that nobody knows the production method, yet here we have a magic item that is not only made up of a sizeable chunk of the stuff but can also 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸 more of it."

Realization hits the two of them, "then, doesn't that make it priceless?" Christoph asks.

Krave nods, "Oh definitely, but there's one more problem, you guys said it demonstrated self-defence capabilities and also reacted during the funeral prayers, specifically to Twilight's-" the old demon is cut off by the slightly energized marble reacting, shuddering in his palm and trying to roll off. Krave's eyes widen, and he puts the back of his hand on the table, letting the marble roll off. It rolls back to the middle of the table and ceases movement.

"And therein lies the other problem, we don't know if this magic item is sentient or not, and given the materials, it most certainly is a relic of an ancient civilization, or perhaps related to Twilight himself, or both," Krave explains, "I hope you see now why this is a delicate matter."

Christoph furrows his brow while Valentina moves to pick up the marble, it does not react, and she scoops it up, "So, you're saying this is something of such a level that could cause fights?" she asks, marvelling at how such a small thing could be so valuable.

Krave laughs, "Fights? This thing could cause wars, not to mention who knows how dangerous it is by itself! I'm half tempted to seal it away," he says, stroking his white beard.

The marble seems to react to that, shivering in Valentina's hands; she holds it closer, "Don't say that. It hasn't done anything wrong; it even protected me in the Labyrinth, technically."

Christoph laughs at the situation, "So then, what are we going to do about it? Do you still want to buy it?"

"Even after what I've told you, you're still considering? You know you could go directly to the queen with this, right?" Krave questions.

"But if we did that, we wouldn't be able to know about what happens with it, right?" Valentina states, petting the marble as if she was trying to soothe a cat; it looked bizarre.

The old demon looks surprised, then laughs again, "Very well, I'll give you a single offer, then, now that we're out of earshot of the others. Researching something like this won't be fast, not to mention it ate the magic item that would've identified some of its properties. Who knows, if it eats any magic item that it touches, it'll be hard to make any progress. Half my funding, every month, until we conclude, and of course, you can come to visit anytime to check up on it."

Valentina was shocked by the number once again, and Christoph almost failed to respond, "Hold on, that's 125,000 a month, isn't that way too much!? Why are you even getting that much funding?!" Christoph exclaimed.

Krave grinned, "Well, as you said, it's priceless, even if we can't harvest Lapis Crystal from it in case it fights back. Something like this could be the starting point for a revolution if we could figure out the mechanics behind the ridiculously efficient way to turn energy directly into Lapis Crystal. It simply defies everything we know about the material, well, the little that we know," he explains, the coughs, "As for why I'm getting so much funding, the queen has me researching War Magic, but don't tell anyone," he giggles nefariously.

Christoph nodded along until the end, "Wait, War Magic? Is there going to be-" he starts, but Krave cut him off with a cough and putting a wrinkly finger to his dry, smiling lips. The elf looks concerned but shakes his head and sighs, "Alright, we'll take the offer, right Valentina?" He asks to the still starstruck sheep-woman.

Valentina snaps from her stupor, and her eyes glitter, "H-huh? Oh, yes! Twenty-five gold coins a month! Think of the things we could do!" she excitedly places the marble back onto the table and pokes it once, "And you, behave for the nice old man, you have my permission to strike back only if they hurt you!"

Both Christoph and Krave had strange looks on their faces, it had only been a few minutes, and she was already treating it like a pet. They both sighed; they would never understand women. But to her credit, the marble actually wobbled in place, what it meant, who knows, but Valentina took it as a sign of confirmation and smiled.

Krave shook his head, "Anyways, I will keep it in my private lab, I have the whole basement of this place to myself, and it has several wards," he says as he gets up and rummages in the pockets of his robe, finding a small ring with a ruby gemstone set, sliding it on a finger and with a flick of the wrist a small pouch appears from thin air. He opens it and counts out twenty-five coins, placing them on the table next to the marble, "You can come back on the first of each month to collect your payment, congratulations on becoming as wealthy as the nobles. Oh, and I suggest you open an account with the Merchant's Guild if you haven't already; if they ask questions, bring up my name," he gave a toothy grin.

Valentina reached out a hand for the coins, then stopped, pulling back and rubbing the back of her hand, nervous about holding so much money. Christoph smiled and took the coins, putting them in a secure inner pocket of his satchel. The elf then shook the demon's hand, solidifying the deal.

Krave taps the wooden staff to the floor again, and the cylindrical barrier fades away, showing Elizabeth and the others sitting at a random table chatting idly.

"Well, if you'll excuse me, I'll begin right away," Krave nodded to everyone and picked up the marble, then moved over to a portion of the stone wall clear of bookshelves and dust, whispering an incantation, and walked through the solid wall as if it weren't there.

"That's pretty fancy," Vaud said, "Magic really lets you do anything, huh."

"I suppose it would seem that way to someone as small-minded as you," Elizabeth rebuked. Vaud laughed in return.

"Can we go get something to eat now?" Edmund asked.

"Sure, just after we stop by the Merchant's Guild," Christoph states, "Hell, I'll even buy for everyone," he says with a silly grin on his face, the reality of how much money he has finally getting to him and making him giddy.

The group left the building, heading off in the direction of the Merchant's Guild.

-⚪-

The basement of the Mage's Tower was similarly under the influence of space magic, but to a higher degree than that of the rest of the tower, a circular room that spread out to nearly three times the tower's circumference on the outside. And just like the rest of the tower, magic tools, papers, books, and other mystical things filled tables, bookshelves, and even the floor, it was quite messy. As Krave was the only person who had access to this place, he had several basic golems that helped move things and a few more advanced golems to help runs tests.

The old demon walked over some books and things, not really caring where he stepped and moved to a larger table in the center of the room, brushing things aside and making room to place the marble down. His eyes flickered as he considered tens to hundreds of tests he could perform, but most of them were thrown away; this thing seemed to be sentient and therefore would reject things like casting offensive magic at it, but then again, he should probably test its self-defence capability... Krave scratched his beard; he had to go about this carefully.

He shrugged; the first thing to test was whether he could even use magic tools or if the marble would absorb whatever magic tool that touched it. He grabbed a palm-sized tool designed to measure energy in the air and held it close to the marble, and the magic tool didn't react; it wasn't fine enough to detect the subtle pull of the marble.

He then placed the tool against the marble, and once again, with a flash of light, the tool disappeared, and the marble brightened ever so slightly.

"Hmm, this is going to be annoying," Krave sighed and tapped the table. He folded his hands and began chanting in a low voice, and the marble reacted by rolling away. The demon stopped chanting, "Hey now, I'm not going to hurt you, I'm just casting detection spells," He rolled his eyes; he wasn't sure if the thing could even understand him. It could just be acting on instinct or directives.

Contrary to his expectations, the marble stopped, then slowly rolled back to where it was. Krave raised an eyebrow, then started the incantation again, and the marble didn't react.

The particular spell he was casting was to let him visibly see the movements of energy; it was a rather high-level spell and included not just magic energy but thermal and kinetic as well. Without proper mastery, the sudden influx of visual information could incapacitate lesser mages. The user could also cut different sights away, even the normal sight, leaving just the magic, kinetic, and thermal information.

Upon completing the spell, information flooded Krave's mind, and he focused on the marble. But he saw nothing, and not just nothing. Against the spell he used, if something was hiding its presence or energy, it would leave negative space, but the marble was something else; not only could he not see the energy inside of it, he couldn't see it at all if he cut his physical vision, it was as if it simply wasn't there.

"... Interesting, very interesting," He muttered, then grabbed a random magic tool, an oblong metal thing with several rods pointing forward along with an unremarkable monster core slotted into the back. He took a glance and activated the tool; this one was designed to manipulate non-elemental energy, mainly used for fine-tuning other tools. The marble did not react even when Krave manipulated the energy around it, and the old demon found that he could not extract energy from it, different from regular Lapis Crystal, which was valued as a battery because of how easily it could store and release energy.

Krave then touched the tool to the marble, and as expected, there was a flash, and the tool was gone, but this time, Krave could see more with the spell active. The energy that made up the tool was pulled in and vanished, the source of the flash was the energy hitting the silver nucleus, and in the briefest of moments, the nucleus became visible on the magic energy spectrum when Lapis Crystal pulled the energy in. The old demon let out a sharp yell as the brightness of the silver nucleus seared into his eyes, and he swore he could see a nebula writhing within and surrounding the nucleus.

He reconnected his physical sight and grabbed a sheaf of paper and a writing utensil, starting to write down notes along with a list of magic tools lost to be replaced later.

Then something else unexpected happened, the basic golems that were normally on standby moved and stood next to the table, their heads inclined to look down at the marble. The old demon stopped writing and looked around, then put on a pair of glasses with tiny runes written on the frame, "Fascinating, golems, return!" He commanded, and the golems showed resistance, seemingly not wanting to move, before eventually moving back to where they usually stood.

He narrowed his eyes, truly a troublesome thing it was, he had to be careful.