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Chapter 90: Bag of Holding

As I watched Ryone ‘disenchanting’ the various weapons, a thought occurred to me. “Ryone, how does this process actually work? Explain it to me.” I had an idea for how this could be used, but I needed to confirm my thoughts on the process itself, and there was nobody better to ask.

Surprised by my sudden question, Ryone glanced around back at me and smiled, holding a black dagger in her hands. “It’s actually fairly simple. There is no diagram to go with this, it is a raw application of mana. By using mana that at least doubles the amount originally used in the enchantment, you force the magic within an item to shift around, taking the pieces carrying the enchantment and expelling them.”

“Doing so causes the material of the item to degrade is tiny specks of it are removed, inevitably leading to its collapse. Those tiny specks are the remnants of the enchanted item that contain the mana of the enchantment. But since the item is now broken, the enchantment is as well, making the mana lose its function.”

I couldn’t help but nod my head, before turning to look at Tubrock. “If you had enough of this dust, would you be able to melt it down and forge another weapon?” This was a technique far beyond what my world was currently capable of, but if it was here in the Admin Room, such things should be possible.

Tubrock was even more surprised by me suddenly addressing him than Ryone had been, but quickly gave the idea some serious thought. “Aye, maybe. It could potentially give a result similar to spell-metal, but I’d have to check to be sure. Though, the amount of weapons needed would be astronomical if I wanted to make something usable.”

I gave a silent nod as I heard that, before motioning for Ryone to continue. I wanted them to try this process at least once, to see if there was a noticeable improvement over normal spell-metal weapons. If so, it could be another good way to produce godly weapons. If not, all that would be wasted was time.

After my little question, I allowed Ryone to finish gathering all of the magic dust that she needed which ended up using almost all of Tubrock’s spare weapons and created a pile of dust that nearly reached up to her knees. Finally, however, she clapped her hands happily while tossing to the side the crumpled remains of the golden shield that she had used as her last ‘sacrifice’. Thankfully, every now and then I would move away the pile of discarded items to a storage area, otherwise there would be a mountain of broken armors and weapons.

“Alright, finally done.” She said, turning around to grin at us. “So, Bihena, did you get a suitable bag?” She asked the human goddess, who nodded her head. What she retrieved was a leather satchel which looked vaguely like a coinpurse, a small leather bag with a thick string tying the top.

“This should be inconspicuous enough, right?” She asked, tossing the bag towards Ryone, who caught it gently and inspected it.

Ryone furrowed her brows slightly, eventually nodded. “It should be… the only question is whether or not it will be able to hold the mana for the enchantment. The powder makes that a bit easier, but we’ll just have to see for ourselves.”

After saying that, she tossed the bag onto the floor a short distance away, and then had a look of intense focus on her face. Immediately, I could see lines carving themselves into the ground around the bag, forming into the standard enchantment diagram. However, things didn’t end there.

Next, several items began appearing one after the other atop the enchantment pattern. First, in each of the eight outer circles and the one inner circle appear a large gem, which I was able to recognize as the gems that I helped her acquire for the enchantment concealment feature that we bought before. After that, green powder began to sprinkle itself along the various lines, followed by a white powder. Finally, a metal container appeared just above the diagram, the bottom of it opening up to let the water spill along the carved lines. It seemed to mix with the green and white powders, creating a light glow that spread through the enchantment diagram.

When this glow hit the nine gathered stones, it began changing colors, going throughout the entire spectrum before the light seemed to fade entirely. Yet, I could tell that the energy was still there, forming a barrier around the enchantment pattern. Now, she began using her actual powers rather than the Admin Room itself, and the magic powder at her feet flew into motion.

Glittering trails of silver, gold, and bronze ascended into the air above the enchantment diagram, spinning in complex patterns before forming over a dozen glowing patterns. Each one seemed to be its own spell diagram, given shape by the magical powder. Rather than hovering in place, they seemed to idly spin and float above the bag, as if their positions didn’t matter. And soon, I found out why.

When Ryone finished her preparations, the enchantment pattern along the ground lit up with a blue light, following the normal process of enchanting an item. However, when that light touched one of the floating spell diagrams, it magnified its intensity. At the same time, the dust making the spell diagram seemed to collapse, floating down in thin streams towards the bag at the center of the formation. The light seemed to be contained within a small dome, yet it was growing brighter and brighter, soon looking like a small sun. “Hold… hold…” I could hear Ryone muttering under her breath as I closed my eyes to avoid the bright light.

When I opened my eyes again to look at the result of the enchantment, I saw the bag still resting there in the middle of the circle. Scattered around it was what seemed like a pile of ash, and the single sulfur lump that had been placed next to it. And, standing in front of the circle, with a nervous expression on her face, was Ryone who reached down to pick the bag up.

After picking up the bag, she carefully examined it, before running over to the pile of discarded items that I had yet to move away. With an anxious look, she focused on the pile, and a faint light emitted from one of the broken fragments, before it seemed to vanish from view. Narrowing my eyes in focus, I examined the details of the bag that Ryone was now staring at with an excited gaze.

Leather Bag of Holding

Enchantments Hidden

Size: (?1.75 m)

Weight Limit: 500 lb

Insert/Removal Range: 1m

Weight Negated: 20%

Time Within: 0.5x

Contents:

Broken Shield Shard

Well, that was certainly an interesting item window. I suppose the areas struck through are what would not appear in a normal identification. Still, even with it being that limited, it offered a great deal of possibility. Looking back at the diagram, I saw that the nine stones were still in tact, and only the murky water mixture had disappeared. It seemed that this process was still repeatable as long as we gathered the powdered slime, old bones, and deep water again.

By the time I finished my little examination, Ryone jumped in front of me, extending the bag to me with both hands, a beaming smile on her face. “It works!” She shouted, dropping the leather pouch into my hand. I was a bit surprised by its weight, as the bag itself appeared visibly empty. Yet, it felt like it weighed a couple pounds more than it should. I suppose that is from the partial weight negation?

As I thought about that, I focused on the bag, and decided to try using it. Concentrating on emptying it, I heard the thud of something falling at my feet. Looking down, the same shield shard that Ryone had used to test whether or not the bag worked appeared in front of me.

Nodding my head in satisfaction, I then looked to Ryone. She was grinning from ear to ear, until she felt something strange tugging at her presence. “Dale?” She asked in concern, noticing that I had tried pulling her into the bag.

“I need someone to check out the interior.” I spoke simply. “I need to know if there is a restriction on placing sharp objects inside, for fear of cutting the bag open from within.” I had hoped to play a little prank on her and just send her into the bag without warning, but I guess that the pull was weaker on living creatures.

“Ahh…” She said, nodding her head, allowing the bag to capture her and send her inside of it. Now its weight definitely increased, to the point where I probably wouldn’t have been able to hold it with one hand back before I became a Keeper. I was sure that she had to be uncomfortably crouched down, seeing as she was taller than size limit, but it was also true that we needed to make sure of the properties within the bag.

As such, I gave her about a minute in there before using the bag to pull her back out. As I had expected, when she came out she was crouched down with her knees almost touching the floor. Standing up, she stretched her arms and legs out with a groan. “Well, the inside isn’t cloth, at least not in the space the magic created. It’s just empty blackness with a smooth barrier. There shouldn’t be any problems storing swords or shields, but long weapons like spears probably won’t fit.”

I nodded my head at that. “Alright. I’ll be keeping this one. Your next job is to create two more for an experiment to see what happens when you put one bag inside the other.” I needed to make sure that there wouldn’t be any black holes or spatial tears forming before I actually took this bag down to the mortal world.

Ryone’s eyes seemed to shine as she heard that. “Alright, that should be fun.” After which, she looked over to Tubrock, who seemed to shudder beneath the gaze despite not being looking this way to see it. No doubt, she was thinking of all the items she’d have him make so that she could disenchant them.

Shaking my head, I turned to leave the forge with my new bag of holding, before noticing Bihena staring intently at it. “Is there something wrong?” I asked her curiously, making her look up at me from the bag.

“When do you think we’d be able to let the mortals have those?” She asked, glancing down at the bag again.

Hearing that, I gave it a bit of thought, though kept walking. She hurriedly got up and followed me in order to hear my answer. “Right now they aren’t really ready for things of this level, even if it would be convenient. It’d be best to wait for them to discover it themselves, but that will probably take them quite a while. And until then, they already have the quest system which acts as storage.” Thinking about it that way, I could potentially fill up the bag of holding with a ton of leather scrolls for various items. Doing it that way might weigh me down, but if I tap into my Keeper strength then I will easily be able to handle the weight.

Hearing my explanation, Bihena nodded her head. “Okay… I think it will really change the world once it is released, though. Especially if Ryone is able to improve it by that time.” I couldn’t help but smile at that thought. No doubt Ryone was going to do her best to find the upgraded versions of the various spell components in able to ‘complete’ the bag of holding. She likely wouldn’t be satisfied until the contents were weightless and did not age.

“I agree. That’s why we need to wait.” I said with a chuckle. “Until then, this will just be a rather convenient way for me to smuggle items down to the world without people noticing.” I should have Tubrock design some armor for me to go with my spell-iron sword.