SWNOVELS Chapter 1362 1362 Raceway Rewards
--- Lily ---contemporary romance
Once it was clear to Thyme that Lily had calmed down they said, "Congratulations, you've taken the second place prize, which is of course, two treasures," Thyme tapped the stone behind him and the case around Lily's bracelet shattered. A moment after that another much larger opening appeared with two treasure chests inside. "Feel free to grab your prize at your leisure,"
Thyme didn't make any further moves after that. Lily just… took a few more moments to relax. The currents here were a lot stronger then they seemed, or perhaps it was just that they got stronger? Lily wasn't sure which way around it was, but the experience had been a bit harrowing and slightly humbling. Apparently being able to move at great speed under your own power is nice and all… but when you're still Rank 2 there's still plenty of people and things that can go faster.
Thyme didn't react further to Lily's stunned silence. Probably a matter of limited interference in the test. The Thyme in front of her likely had a very limited number of 'lines' that it was allowed to use. Lily didn't let herself spend too long thinking about it. She WAS on a time limit after all, so she swam over to the chests and transformed to throw them both open properly.
Then she realised she'd forgotten her bracelet, so she quickly shut the chests before she'd taken a good look, swam back out to grab her bracelet treasure and slipped it on before going back and opening the chests a second time. Inside the first was obviously a pair of boots. Which felt somewhat thematic for a race… but it was an underwater race. So perhaps they weren't appropriate at all?
Lily shrugged as she took them out of the chest. She wasn't wearing any shoes of her own so it was easy to slide them on her feet. The shoes constricted around her ankles, but below that seemed to remain mostly the same size. Lily wiggled her toes a bit and they seemed fine. She tried to move the rest of her foot around in the shoe… and found the shoe always came with her. Not sliding at all. *Clearly black magic trickery is afoot.*
With that established Lily did a quick check over the treasure chest and found nothing regarding the name of the boots. Which was a touch annoying, as it likely meant the paper was hidden somewhere in the cave and she'd have to figure out WHERE if she really wanted to get a hint as to what the boots did.
Lily shrugged off that problem for a moment and looked into the other chest. This one contained a bracelet, though it looked nothing like the other two Lily had already acquired. This one was made of rose gold metal chains all linked together. The chains were all slightly different in size, but it wasn't always a major difference. If Lily wasn't examining the bracelet closely she wasn't sure she'd have noticed. Sadly, this didn't give her any clues regarding what the bracelet actually DID.
So with that in mind Lily started to investigate the rest of the cave… but it really wasn't anything too interesting. It was a very standard cave, with a few rocky protrusions but after a relatively quick look, Lily wasn't able to find the paper relating to the chests. Perhaps there was some hidden latch or a rock that could be shifted aside but nothing Lily could see indicated as such. Which raised the question. What did she want to do now?
*Is it worth spending my time investigating here? I've got… a smaller amount of mana then I'd like but it's not nothing. Perhaps… twenty percent? Which isn't too bad after taking into account the fact I needed to use my shadow magic to help speed along my ride. I mean… I hope it sped me up enough to make the difference between one and two chests, or two and none, because if not I just burnt through a lot of the mana I'd regenerated for nothing.*
Lily shook her head to clear the worries from her mind. There was no reason to get caught up in that sort of thing right now. *Let's not. Ignore that issue. Address what I have here. Is it worth looking for the paper? With two chests that need identifying it's possible that I can find one at least if I look around for a bit. Surely with two out there one is possible… but I'm not sure I NEED to know what the boots do.
A bit of mana and I bet I'll find out that they're jet boots of some kind. Perhaps they have multiple settings. Like, the fact that I can move my toes around is to control the power or something? I could see it and I can probably test it without too much trouble. So what I really need to know about is the bracelet… but I don't know how to test that properly, or what it might do.
I mean… what does a bracelet of chains actually DO? I can sort of imagine that you throw it over someone and trap them? Like a really fancy lasso or something. Sadly I'm not any good with throwing that sort of thing, and I don't even know if my guess is at all correct. Still I suppose I could try it.*
Looking at Thyme for a few moments, Lily decided it was best to just ask, "Am I allowed to test treasures on you?" Thyme didn't respond. Lily took that as a sign of acceptance, because Thyme would, probably, have answered if it was against the rules in some way. So Lily put a bit of mana in the bracelet and then lightly threw it at Thyme. The bracelet just bounced off Thyme's chest where it made contact. No expanding into a magic lasso. No magical ball of chains. It MAY have lit up a little bit during the flight but that could just as easily be the reflection of the sun on the metal.
Lily clicked her teeth and picked up the bracelet, throwing it around her wrist. *Right. Well that was a failure. Do I want to test the lightning rod? On the one hand… it could be a powerful trump card. On the OTHER hand I'm underwater and it could damage me enough to force me out of the game for thirty minutes. Which, might not be too bad if I find a good spot to hide to reduce the chance of my stuff being stolen… but is it worth testing? Thyme would totally give out a few useless weapons. That's not even in question. No the question is, IS this weapon in particular one of those that doesn't work.
I… I don't have a lot of experience with magical lightning. I don't know how reasonable it is for it to just 'work' underwater. For a certain definition of work I suppose. It's not electricity. That's not what it is. It's LIGHTNING MAGIC. Of course the counterpoint is that paper magic IS paper. Especially when it wants to be, but it's not always paper. Sometimes it's almost paper.
I imagine having a proper lightning bolt would take up too much energy… but that might be a poor guess on my part. I wish I knew the answer, but I don't so… I guess I can only conclude it's not worth testing. So what do I do now? Keep looking for the paper? No I guess I test the boots out first.*
The test of the boots was easy. Lily just aimed herself towards the middle of the 'race track' and pushed in some mana. She moved forward in a burst of movement. It wasn't amazingly fast, and it was possibly building up speed… but you only went forward as long as you were putting mana in. So the quick burst didn't get Lily far. Despite all that, she was quite happy with things. A few more little tests with more of her precious mana reserves just confirmed things. Lily transformed back into her Memphis form for a moment and got the expected result. Can't use the jet boots in Memphis form because you can't put mana into them.
*Right so these are definitely jet boots. Not sure how much use I'll get out of them because they seem like little mana hogs if you want to use them for more than just quick burst. That's on top of my desire to remain in Memphis form for the most part. At least they're comfortable to wear despite being underwater and without socks. Not sure I'd even bother to keep them on if they weren't.
Which I suppose just leaves the question of what to do now? I still don't know what the bracelet does but I've wasted more than a little time here. I think I want to check out the race track carefully for signs of treasure chests, so it's not like I've got a long travel time… but I still don't know if looking for the paper is a trap or not.*
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