Free Web NovelChapter 10: 10 | REWARDS!!!
’Truly full of surprises.’ She thought in her mind as she glanced at him.
Dexter fed her and she opened her mouth slightly, letting the warm spoon enter.
The moment the broth touched her throat, a , soothing warmth exploded within her chest.
A wave of pure, refined mana rushed along her severed meridians. The constant, burning nerve pain in her neck and shoulders, suddenly dulled, dropping significantly for the first time in three years.
She stared at Dexter and spoke.
"Didn’t you give all your money to the filth yesterday?"
"Don’t worry about the money," Dexter replied with a small, relaxed chuckle, holding up another spoonful.
Mira stared at him, her eyes searching his face but she eventually gave up and muttered. "Stubborn."
As he fed her, Mira glanced at the empty space on the table beside her, then looked at Dexter. "Where is mine?"
Dexter paused, his spoon hovering in the air. "Your what?"
She narrowed her crimson eyes at him. "My smart glasses. Or do you think I don’t need them just because I’m paralyzed?"
Dexter snorted softly, a trace of amusement in his eyes. "Don’t you usually like closing your eyes and ignoring me? What do you need them for?"
Mira glared at him. "If I don’t wear them, good luck getting those two to wear theirs."
Dexter’s face twitched. He looked from Mira to Lyra and Selene, who were sitting silently at the table. He realized Mira might be right; the other two were watching her, taking cues from her behavior.
"Alright," Dexter said, sighing as he smiled. "I give up. If you can get them to wear the glasses, I will buy the latest, most expensive model for you tomorrow."
Mira let out a short, quiet huff of satisfaction, swallowing the last of her broth.
"Did you sell your kidney?"
Dexter smiled gently as he reached into his backpack, pulling out three small, velvet-lined jade boxes. "Would it have mattered if I did?"
Mira rolled her eyes, but said. Nothing more.
"Oh, before I forget."
Dexter set the three jade boxes on the table. He opened the first box, revealing the bronze-tinted metallic Pain-Reducing Bracelet. He leaned closer to Mira, carefully lifting her limp right hand and sliding the band over her wrist.
"It’s really ugly," Mira muttered, looking at the simple bronze band.
But the moment the metal made contact with her skin, a soft, high-frequency hum vibrated through her wrist. A mild, soothing electric pulse traveled up her arm, gently blocking the chronic pain signals in her spine. The constant pain in her neck and shoulders dropped by another ten percent.
Mira froze. Her crimson eyes widened as she felt the sudden, blessed relief wash over her body. She looked from her wrist to Dexter’s face, her voice dropping to a whisper. "You... you bought me a Type 1 artifact?"
"Yes," Dexter said, nodding his head. "It’s a pain-reduction artifact. It should help make sitting in that chair a bit more comfortable."
He stood up, picked up the other two jade boxes, and handed them to Lyra. He pulled out his phone, typed a quick note, and showed it to her:
`[These are Calming Bracelets. They are low-grade artifacts that will help calm your mind and reduce Selene’s seizure frequency. Please keep them.]`
Lyra read the text, her dark eyes looking at the beautiful, blue jade bracelets inside the boxes. She looked up at Dexter, her expression soft and silent, and slowly nodded. She took one of the bracelets and slid it onto her own wrist, then reached out to slide the second one onto Selene’s arm.
Selene sat quietly, drinking her golden broth in silence. But when she finished her bowl, she slowly tilted her head toward Dexter.
Her lips parted, and she spoke in a voice so soft and quiet that Dexter almost missed it:
"...Warm."
It was the very first word she had spoken to him since they met.
At that exact moment, a flood of bright, golden notifications materialized in Dexter’s vision, accompanied by a rapid succession of soft tones in his mind.
[Ding!]
[Investment Detected: Physical, Mental, Emotional, Security]
[Current Multiplier: 10x]
[Calculating Returns...]
[Calculation Complete.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Returns Granted]
[Skill Upgrade]
[Cooking: Novice (Peak) → (Early) Rank 1 Master Food Smith]
• Improved Enchanted Meal Success Rate
• Reduced Ingredient Waste
• Enhanced Flavor Extraction
• Additional Meal Effects
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Recipe Acquired]
[Grade 2 Recipe: Body Accelerating Healing Broth]
• Accelerates recovery and healing
• Double the effect of the Five Body Nourishing Meals when taken together.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Cultivation Reward]
[2 Months of Compressed Mana Refinement]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Item Upgrades]
[Serenity Bangle] x2
Type 1 Relic → Type 2 Relic
• Pain Reduction: 10% → 20%
[Tranquility Band]
Type 1 Relic → Type 2 Relic
• Calms the Mind
• Stimulates Brain Activity
[AI Smart Glasses] (Type 1) x3
→ Uses body heat to charge
→ Doesn’t need internet to translate
→ 100x speed in transcribing and translating (Type 2)
• Real-Time Speech Translation
• Multi-Language Translation
• Detects Mana Signatures
• Detects Aura Fluctuations
[Medical Supplies]
→ Grade 1 Painkiller
• Eliminates Pain for 2 Hours
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Security Upgrade]
[Smart Security System]
• Right reinforced Steel Deadbolts
• Iron Window Bars
• Motion Detection Alarm
• Mana-Sensitive Perimeter Ward
• Silent Alert Linked to Security Guild
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Do you wish to accept Rewards? Y/N]
