Chapter 106: Rest, Using the 50 Omni-Slot Machine Tickets
"This palace screams danger." Veshan wryly smiled.
Elowen nodded. "I think we should fully recover before going in."
[Jovan: This palace is giving the same level of vibe I felt when I entered the ruins in the other Origin Tomb, and got the Cursed Vessel: Colored King Black.]
’Oh? So there’s a chance there is a cursed vessel inside...’ Aidan’s eyes glinted.
[Jovan: It might not be a cursed vessel, but something equally powerful and dangerous.]
"Alright, folks. Let’s rest up here before diving into that maw of danger." Aidan announced. "We are all injured and are not at our full power."
Everyone agreed, and sat down at various spots.
Healing energy passed hand to hand for the next hour, Ordun mending Sella’s shoulder properly this time instead of just holding it together.
Isolde worked a slow warmth into Elowen’s cracked ribs. Solenne’s leg stopped dragging somewhere in the middle of it. Aidan’s forearm knit shut on its own without him paying it much attention at all.
Aidan settled against a fallen pillar and closed his eyes, and to anyone glancing over, he looked exactly like everyone else in camp. Resting. Recovering.
Inside his own mind, he was doing anything but that. Finn was healing him instead.
Fifty Omni-Slot Machine tickets sat in his Inventory, untouched since the outbreak, and this quiet hour was as good a chance as he’d get to burn through them without an audience.
’No time like almost-dying in a broken palace, I guess. Let’s see what the Program’s been sitting on.’
He fed in the first ten tickets together, entirely inside the private space behind his own eyes.
[Congratulations. You have acquired the following items from the Omni-Slot Machine.]
— 1 x Talent Stone.
— Vial of Swift Mending (Legendary).
— Emberfang Twin Daggers (Legendary).
— 2 x Talent Stones.
— Duskguard Plate (Legendary).
— Draught of Clarity (Legendary).
— Stormcaller’s Halberd (Divine).
— 1 x Talent Stone.
— Compass of Lost Realms (Divine).
— 3 x Talent Stones.
Seven Talent Stones out of the first batch, on top of the eight he already had banked. A pair of Legendary-rank pieces, one Divine weapon, and an artifact besides.
’Solid start.’ He filed it all away without slowing down. ’Next ten.’
[Congratulations. You have acquired the following items from the Omni-Slot Machine.]
— Aegis of the Drowned King (Divine).
— 2 x Talent Stones.
— Talent Rune: Ashen Step (A-rank).
— 1 x Talent Stone.
— Talent Rune: Verdant Regeneration (S-rank).
— Reaper’s Whisper Dagger (Divine).
— 4 x Talent Stones.
— Elixir of the Tenth Hour (Divine).
— Talent Rune: Tidereave Current (SSS-rank).
— 2 x Talent Stones.
He held perfectly still for a moment at the Tidereave Current, the way he always did when something genuinely surprised him, and nobody around him noticed a thing.
An SSS-rank Talent Rune. Aidan filed it away with a small, private grin, already thinking about a certain someone who’d earned exactly this kind of gift.
’That one’s Beatrix’s. Told her I’d give her one.’
Nine more stones from that batch. Sixteen new, twenty-four total.
The third ten went in without ceremony.
[Congratulations. You have acquired the following items from the Omni-Slot Machine.]
— Talent Rune: Ironskin Ward (A-rank).
— 2 x Talent Stones.
— Talent Rune: Stormheart Resonance (S-rank).
— 1 x Talent Stone.
— Tonic of Bright Mending (Legendary).
— 3 x Talent Stones.
— Talent Rune: Duskbound Fang (SS-rank).
— 1 x Talent Stone.
— Phial of Steady Nerve (Divine).
— 2 x Talent Stones.
A second SS-rank rune. He set that one aside mentally too, already turning over who else in his growing circle of people and summons might have use for it.
Nine more stones. Thirty-three total, past the threshold already, and twenty tickets still left to burn.
[Power Bond talent evolution available: 30 Talent Stones required. Current total: 33.]
’There it is.’ He kept his breathing even, his face carefully blank. ’Later. Let’s finish the rest first.’
Batch four.
[Congratulations. You have acquired the following items from the Omni-Slot Machine.]
— Talent Rune: Sovereign’s Eclipse (SSS-rank).
— 2 x Talent Stones.
— Draught of Sealed Wounds (Divine).
— 1 x Talent Stone.
— Cordial of Lingering Vigor (Legendary).
— 3 x Talent Stones.
— 2 x Talent Stones.
— Talent Rune: Ashfall Requiem (A-rank).
— 1 x Talent Stone.
— Essence of Quiet Focus (Divine).
Something in his chest sat up properly for the first time all evening.
An SSS-rank Talent Rune wasn’t rare. It was the kind of thing entire guilds went to war over, the kind of pull that made headline news across the whole Alliance if word of it ever got out, which it absolutely would not.
Nine more stones. Forty-two total, and ten tickets remained.
He fed in the last batch without much real hope of a second SSS pull.
[Congratulations. You have acquired the following items from the Omni-Slot Machine.]
— Talent Rune: Hollowmere Tide (S-rank).
— 2 x Talent Stones.
— Draught of the Hollow Hour (Legendary).
— 1 x Talent Stone.
— Tincture of Second Wind (Divine).
— Talent Rune: World Swallowing Serpent (SSS-rank).
— 3 x Talent Stones.
— Vial of Ember Calm (Legendary).
— 2 x Talent Stones.
— 1 x Talent Stone.
Aidan sat very still for a long moment, alone inside his own head with a haul that could reshape a dozen careers, while outside, in the physical world, nothing about him had changed at all beyond the faint, private curve of a grin.
’Two SSS runes. Fifty-one Talent Stones banked, all in.’ He exhaled slowly. ’More than enough for the upgrade, with plenty left over.’
He didn’t trigger the evolution yet. That felt like something worth doing with proper attention, not squeezed in during a five-minute rest between disasters.
He opened his eyes a while later, stretched like a man who’d simply taken a good, long rest, and glanced across the camp to where Beatrix sat sharpening a blade she didn’t strictly need to sharpen.
"Catch," he said, and tossed her the Tidereave Current rune without any further explanation.
Beatrix caught it on reflex, turned it over once, and raised an eyebrow at him, eyes shocked.
"This..."
Aidan shrugged, easy and unbothered. "Don’t overthink it. It’s yours. I told you you would get one."
The others didn’t know that something as absurd as a Talent Rune, and that too of an SSS-rank, was passed to Beatrix in a casual manner.
She studied him for a moment longer. She knew there was some kind of secret, but she didn’t feel the need to pry it.
"...Thanks," she said instead, and used the rune right away.
Behind them, the broken palace waited patiently in the dark, entirely unaware of how much heavier Aidan’s Inventory had just gotten before anyone even stepped through its gates.
’Now then, I should also initiate the upgrade of my Power Bond talent. And also try to summon someone. A final-stage Divine-rank would be the most helpful here.’