The Gift of Loot Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Clearing The Dungeon

Read chapter 3 of The Gift of Loot by Jack_Golightly on NovelPedia.

Thomas stared down at the scroll in his hands. From the second he'd found out about gifts, he had not wanted anybody to learn what he was: The shape of his soul. Of course, the media landscape being what it was, people on TikTok were showing off their scrolls upon leaving the dungeon. Who knew if they were real or not? It was social media. But he wasn't going to do that. He was the type of person who only had a Facebook account to keep in touch with his friends, and that was it. Now, as he stared down at the scroll, which told the world what his soul was, he realized that his little inner paranoia that had driven him here... wasn't baseless. Deep down, he had known that this was something he should keep to himself. And... he had received a lot of drops from the monsters, hadn't he? Sure, there had been a couple that had stiffed him and had nothing, but he had received mana crystals—sometimes a couple of mana crystals—from everything else, including the penknife and the dagger. Were those rare drops? He pulled off his backpack and sorted through the crystals again. The fire ones were warm against his skin, the blue waters cool, and the air ones were sort of neutral. Finally, he found the penknife. As he had been in the middle of the dungeon, he hadn't taken a good look at it, but now he did. There were tiny, clear mana crystals, the size of a gem you'd see in a woman's ring, embedded in the handle. All of these were perfectly clear, with no sign of an element at all. He thought that meant they were ready to be filled. Pressing the button, he flicked out the blade again and carefully pressed the flat of it against the wall. It was strong and didn't bend, not even when he put more and more weight on it. Weird. This was made of really high-quality metal, maybe even alien material, on top of everything else. New materials had been introduced to Earth since the official onboarding announcement, and apparently, the rich and well-connected having first access to the dungeons had been the basis of the explosion of technology over the last 75 years. The more you know. But now things were going to be less dinosaur oil and more mana-based, he guessed. Not that he knew the difference. He couldn't tell what went on in something as small as a new-gen computer chip. For all he knew, those might have been mana-based for years. With a shake of his head, Thomas put the penknife away and resealed his backpack. His backpack was so full that it lifted the top flap, and the top layer of mana crystals peeked out. That wasn't good. He needed to be inconspicuous and keep this to himself. Those National Guard guys would be taking notes. Quickly, Thomas shuffled through the backpack and took out a little canteen of water and a pack of snacks that he had brought in. He hadn't known how easy or hard this dungeon would be, so he had packed for everything. After taking a drink, he hooked the canteen to his belt—probably something he should have done before, but whatever—then left the snacks in the dungeon. It was just a pack of peanut butter and crackers. When he left the dungeon, this instance would be gone, and so would anything that he had left behind. Now, with those two items gone, the mana crystals didn't bulge out the sides and the top as much. Though he would have to be careful to walk smoothly, or else he would start clinking. But that wasn't good enough. The scroll said something about his powers, about his soul and his value in a world that was about to get very, very odd and possibly dangerous. Thomas read the thing over and memorized it. It wasn't hard. There wasn't much to it. Then he took out a brand-new lighter from one of the pockets of his backpack. Clicking on the lighter, he brought the flame to the scroll. As he'd noted before, the scroll wasn't made out of paper, more like a vellum-type material, and it took a few seconds to catch. But then it did, and he dropped it and watched it curl into ashes on the ground. The smoke was whisked awa