Chương 61: Chapter 58: Spoils of the Hive

Exiting my status screen, I looked up to see Alex moving carefully among the piles of ash, using a small survival knife to harvest the heads of any unburnt snake carcasses. A few paces away, Joe and Pete were busy gathering the uncharred bodies. Noticing my questioning look, Alex glanced up.

"I think I can do something with the venom sacs in the heads. Individually, the venom from a single bite isn't that potent, but if I concentrate a couple dozen doses and introduce a few active herbal additives, I might be able to brew a really nasty coating for our blades."

"Sounds good to me, little brother," Mike said with a sinister grin, spinning a pair of long-bladed daggers smoothly between his fingers. I had recently passed those daggers to Mike—the ones I'd looted off the rogues we killed back when we took the school. They were a much more natural fit for his agile style than my own. Joe spoke up, a look of genuine satisfaction on his face as he lifted a particularly thick, clean specimen.

"And I'm absolutely not willing to let all this clean meat go to waste, either."

"I know how much you love rattlesnake barbecue," I replied with a light chuckle.

"Hey, we're still operating in a strict survival situation," Joe said defensively, tossing the meat into his dimensional ring.

"Meat is meat." I raised my hands in mock surrender.

"I'm not judging, Joe. Just do me a favor and don't try to feed any of it to Denise. If she finds out, you might not live long enough to enjoy the rest of the meal."

"Fair enough," Joe agreed, his booming laugh echoing off the stone walls.

"Alright," I said, looking over the cavern.

"Collect what you want, check your health stats, and then let's get moving. I don't know how deep this dungeon actually runs, and I'd like for us to be back home at the school by dinner time if possible." The team spent the next two minutes efficiently gathering the usable resources, storing them instantly into their rings. Just as we were about to fall back into our staggered intervals, Mike froze, pointing into the shadows.

"Wait, what's that over there in the corner?" Because the flow of the melee had pushed us backward toward the entrance corridor, none of us had noticed anything else deeper in the chamber aside from the main tunnel leading down. Hidden away in a far, shadowed recess right against the wall of the descending passage sat a plain, unadorned wooden box, roughly three feet cubed. In a room completely devoid of light, the crate would have remained completely invisible without Mike's heightened awareness.

We approached the object warily, keeping our guards raised in case it was a proximity trap. Sure enough, the moment Mike took a step within ten feet of it, his eyes shimmered with a faint, blue arcane light. [Skill Activated: Detect Trap (Beginner 4)] A tense silence fell over the room. After a few seconds, Mike pointed a dagger at the box.

"The trip trigger is tied directly to the chest's lid. Open this manually, and it springs an internal mechanism, though the interface isn't high enough to identify the exact payload. Everyone take three steps back. I've got an idea." The team obliged, stepping back several yards into the open cavern. Mike backed away as well, but once he reached a safe distance, he held his right hand out toward the chest, focusing a minuscule amount of mana.

A translucent, glowing blue hand materialized in the air, floating over the chest. [Spell Cast: Mage Hand (Beginner 3)] Using the spectral appendage, Mike gripped the lip of the lid and flipped it wide open. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. CLICK. The instant the seal broke, a sharp mechanical crack echoed through the hall.

Four heavy, spring-loaded iron spears shot out with terrifying velocity—two erupting straight upward from hidden recesses in the floor directly in front of the box, and two driving outward from behind the frame. If anyone had been standing there to open it manually, they wouldn't have survived the impact. Mike dismissed the magical construct with a flick of his wrist and walked up to the open crate. A quick secondary sweep confirmed there were no further triggers left to clear.

"How exactly did you pull that off?" Joe asked, staring at the empty air.

"Are you telekinetic now?"

"Wait, you didn't see it?" Mike asked, flashing a smug smile.

"I saw it," Alex said, raising a hand.

"So did I," I added. Joe and Pete simply shook their heads, completely blank.

"It's a utility spell called Mage Hand," Mike explained, clearly enjoying the spotlight.

"I unlocked it the moment I hit level ten. It lets me grab, manipulate, or strike objects from a distance—perfect for clearing hazards or siphoning items without getting close. It's completely transparent, meaning you need dark vision paired with a decent perception score to actually track the silhouette. Dark vision alone won't help you if your baseline perception is flat."

"Handy," Pete muttered with a dry chuckle. As the party gathered around the open crate, a soft, localized glow radiated from within the compartment. Lying at the bottom lay their rewards. I reached down and picked up the first item, revealing it to the team as my inspect proficiency scanned the text. [Floor I Cleared. Loot Chest Generated.] [Loot Identified:] 1x Mana Crystal (Uncommon Tier - High-Density Earth Aspect) 1x Scorching Battle Axe (Uncommon Tier - +10 Fire Damage) 30x Gold Coins (System Minted)"This is exactly what we came down here for," I said, turning the glowing gemstone over in my hand.

"Along with the main dungeon core, these will allow us to anchor the magical features of our compound. But it has other direct applications as well."

"If I crush that down and stabilize it with the right flora, I think I could turn it into a high-grade mana regeneration potion," Alex noted, studying the light.

"Definitely," I said.

"It's also used for enchanting weapons and armor. According to the interface back at Novus, we need a total of nine of these high-tier crystals to fully power the campus networks alongside the core. I stored the crystal safely into my ring and handed the solid, single-handed battle axe across to Joe, who immediately ran his thumb down the edge of the blade to check the balance.

"The physical base stats are actually lower than my current bearded axe," Joe noted, tilting the steel toward the red light of his flashlight.

"But it does ten points of active fire damage on every successful hit, and the burn stacks if the target is already taking fire damage from another source."

"Not a bad pull for our first enchanted weapon," I said.

"Even if you don't use it as a primary weapon, we can hand it over to Henry back at the forge. He might be able to deconstruct it and learn the flame formula for his own enchanting." Finally, I reached to the bottom of the box and pulled out the plain leather pouch of gold. Dumping the contents onto the lid of the box, I split the thirty gold pieces evenly among the five of us, giving everyone a clean six pieces to automatically register into our respective Rings of Holding.

There was nothing else left inside the compartment. I leaned back, looking at the rough timber of the box.

"To be entirely honest, I'm a little disappointed. With all the fantasy tropes out there, I was expecting a massive, ornate golden chest overflowing with ancient relics." Mike and Alex burst out laughing, while Pete and Joe just looked back and forth between us, completely lost.

"You two really aren't gamers, are you?" I asked, looking at our front liners. Both of them shook their heads perfectly in sync.

"Well, in the games, there's always an elaborate chest at the end of a floor," I smiled.

"Apparently, the system doesn't care about your games," Pete replied dryly, checking his mace strap.

"Can we keep moving now?"