Ryan POV
A pair of low-level monsters break from the brush as we near the sheltered clearing, and we handle them without much trouble.
Daniel finishes his with a clean strike, grinning at the quick kill, shaking out the tension still sitting in his shoulders from the fight before this one. I drop the other before it fully closes the distance, the whole exchange barely interrupting our conversation, more reflex now than anything I have to think through.
"Easy after what we just went through," Daniel says, sheathing his sword and stretching his arms overhead until something in his shoulder pops audibly.
"Don’t get comfortable," Emily says, though there’s no real edge to it, just habit at this point. "Let’s check what we picked up before we head back. Don’t want to walk into the city half-dead and carrying something we didn’t even look at."
"We’re not half-dead," Daniel says.
"You were ten minutes ago."
"That was a different ten minutes. I’ve recovered."
We settle into the clearing, backs against a cluster of flat rocks still warm from the day’s heat, and I pull up my inventory, scanning through the drops collected over the last two fights. Fur, coin, a few crafting materials—mostly unremarkable.
Then one entry catches my eye, highlighted in a pale blue border instead of the plain white surrounding everything else around it.
"There’s something different here," I say, sitting up straighter.
Emily leans in immediately, posture shifting from relaxed to focused in half a second. "Pull it up."
I focus on the item, and a window opens in front of me.
[Hunter’s Edge Blade — Uncommon]
[Requires: Level 5, Strength 15]
[Effect: +8% Attack Speed, +3 Strength]
Daniel’s eyes go wide, leaning over my shoulder without asking, close enough that I can feel him practically vibrating with excitement.
"Okay, that’s actually good. That’s way better than anything we bought at the shop earlier. Way better."
"It’s uncommon," Emily says, studying the listed effects. "Attack speed bonus is solid for a Warrior build. Strength requirement’s a bit steep this early, though."
"How steep?" I ask.
"You’re sitting at fourteen strength right now. You need fifteen to even equip it."
I check my own stats to confirm, scrolling through the numbers out of habit more than doubt. She’s right—one point short, close enough to taste but not close enough to use, which somehow feels worse than not finding it at all. There’s something almost cruel about it, the system dangling an upgrade in front of me and then quietly stepping it just out of reach.
"So it’s useless until I level again," I say, a little flat.
"Not useless. Just not usable yet. There’s a difference." Emily gestures at the blade’s listing like the distinction should be obvious. "Keep it. One more level up and you’ve got a real upgrade over what you’re carrying right now. Could happen as early as tomorrow if we keep clearing at this pace." This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
"Assuming nothing else almost kills us first," Daniel mutters.
"Assuming that, yes."
Daniel’s already doing math out loud, counting on his fingers.
"Okay, if monsters out here drop stuff like this regularly, and we clear like twenty a day, that’s—actually, I don’t know what that is, but it sounds like a lot of money. A lot of money, Ryan. We could be rich."
"They don’t drop like this regularly," Emily says, cutting the fantasy short before it can grow any further. "That’s the first uncommon we’ve seen all day, out of what, fifteen kills between the three of us? Most drops are standard junk, the stuff we’ve already been pulling by the handful. This is a good find. It is not the normal rate, and you should not start planning your retirement around it."
"Still. A guy can dream."
"Dream quieter. You’re scaring the wildlife."
"The wildlife already tried to kill us once tonight. I think we’re past being scared of each other."
I turn the blade’s description over again in my head, comparing it mentally against the sword I bought at the shop earlier that evening. Better bonuses on paper, noticeably better, but locked behind a requirement I haven’t hit yet. It’s a strange kind of lesson, finding something genuinely valuable and still not being able to use it, not until the rest of me catches up to where the item already is. Power sitting right there, patient, waiting on me instead of the other way around.
"Can I sell it instead, if I’m not using it yet?" I ask.
"You could," Emily says, considering it seriously instead of dismissing it outright. "But I wouldn’t. Attack speed bonuses like that aren’t common at this tier, especially stacked with a flat strength bonus on top of it. Hold onto it. You’ll hit fifteen strength within a level or two at this rate, maybe sooner given how fast you’ve been clearing things today."
"What would it even sell for, if I did?"
"Couple hundred gold, maybe more depending on the buyer and how desperate they are for the attack speed boost specifically. Still less than what it’s actually worth to you once you can equip it yourself and use it properly."
"So basically you’re saying I’m sitting on money I can’t spend yet."
"Basically, yes. Welcome to half of what makes this game interesting."
Daniel flops back against a nearby rock, staring up at the gaps in the canopy. "This has officially been the best and worst day of my Eternal Realm career. Almost died to a level twenty-two monster. Found actual good loot I can’t even claim credit for finding, because it dropped for Ryan and not me. I still haven’t unlocked a single skill of my own. Truly a day of extremes."
"You’ll get there," I say.
"Easy for the guy holding the shiny upgraded sword to say. Must be nice up there in special-treatment land. Does it come with a view?"
"It comes with a strength requirement I haven’t met yet, so no, not really."
"Still sounds nicer than where I’m standing."
Emily smiles faintly at the exchange, the first real relaxation I’ve seen from her since the fight with the beast ended, something almost soft crossing her face for a second before it’s gone again.
But her focus shifts back to me a moment later, something more serious settling into her expression. "Put the blade away for now. We should finish heading back before it gets fully dark. I’d rather not explain to a guard why we’re still out here after sunset with a kid who hasn’t unlocked a skill yet."
"You heard me."
I nod, reaching into my inventory to store the blade properly instead of leaving it floating loose in the display the way Daniel’s been doing with half his own loot all day, every item just sitting there unsorted like he can’t be bothered.
As I do, my hand brushes past the small, warm shape I’ve been carrying since the boar fight.
The moment the two items sit close together in my open inventory screen, something shifts.
A thin pulse of light passes between them—barely visible, there and gone in less than a second.
I freeze.
"Did you see that?" I ask, my voice lower than I mean it to be.
Emily’s already moving closer, eyes narrowing on my open inventory like she can force herself to see whatever just happened through sheer concentration alone. "See what? I don’t see anything."
"The blade. It just—" I stop, unsure how to describe something that happened too fast to fully process, the image already fading at the edges even though it happened only seconds ago. "It glowed. Same color as the other item. Just for a second, then it stopped completely."
Daniel sits up fast, all pretense of exhaustion gone instantly. "Wait, the mystery thing did something again? Seriously? Right now, while we’re just sitting here?"
"I don’t know. Maybe I imagined it."
But even as I say it, I know I didn’t imagine anything. The warmth in my palm lingers a moment longer than it should, faint but unmistakable.
Emily studies my face carefully, clearly weighing whether to push the question further or let it sit for now. For a long moment, none of us says anything.
"Put them both away," she finally says. "Separately, if you can manage it. Different pockets of the inventory, as far apart as the system lets you put them."
I do exactly that, sliding the blade and the unidentified item into different sections of my inventory, putting as much distance between them.
The glow doesn’t return.
But the feeling it left behind doesn’t fade either, and as we start the walk back toward Silverwood, the trees thinning slowly around us and the last of the daylight fading from orange to grey overhead, I can’t stop turning it over in my mind—two completely unrelated objects, found hours apart from completely different sources, reacting to each other.
"You’re quiet," Daniel says eventually, falling into step beside me, his usual energy dialed down for once.
"Thinking."
"About the glowing thing?"
"About all of it."
Emily doesn’t say anything, walking a few steps ahead of us both, but I notice the way her hand drifts occasionally toward her own sword hilt, like some part of her hasn’t fully relaxed since the clearing, like she’s still waiting for something else to happen before she lets herself believe the day is actually, finally over.