Mixed Blessing System

After arriving at the Frost estate, Lothur met with Viktoria. As soon as he said goodbye to Annaliese, he went beside his wife to the family treasury.

"Lothur, my father will not be able to accompany us, but he has already told me that you will be allowed to choose up to three items from our treasure." Viktoria said as she looked into his eyes, walking from his side toward the most important place on this estate.

The treasure of the Frost family was in the central area of this estate, where the strongest cultivators stood on guard to protect the heritage of this organization.

The Frost family was one of the organizations currently existing in this area that had the longest time since its foundation. So some of their relics were truly legendary but also unknown to even the people of this family.

A lot has happened since the founding of this family. They had moments of ups and downs that caused stories or artifacts to be lost. So there were things in that place that even the Frost patriarch was unaware of the origin and its effects.

It was like this for people from this family, but much worse for those not connected to this organization, who mostly did not even know about 20% of the items there.

Because of this, Aiken had not made any restrictions on what Lothur could take as a prize, only a limit on the quantity of what he could take.

"Is that okay with you? It's only three." Viktoria repeated.

"Hmm, that's already more than I had imagined I would get." Lothur commented to his wife as he saw a place that looked like a large tomb in the central area of this headquarters.

"How much did you think you would gain?" She asked out of curiosity.

"None."

"Tsk!"

"Stop seeing my family that way!" She exclaimed to him. "We would never do something so terrible."

"What about you? How many did you get?" He asked.

"I'm not getting anything. I'm satisfied with what I currently have." She replied, considering that her family did not have many things, most of the treasure items were very old, and she did not even know how to use them.

What good would it do for her to take possession of them if it was not going to change anything? It would be much better to leave them there so that at least they could serve as historical artifacts in a museum without the risk of being lost...

Lothur heard this and began to lower his expectations of this place.

He was thinking of something when the two arrived in front of the only entrance to that place. "Viktoria, are you here for the prizes?" One of the guards in the surrounding area, a level 14 elder, asked this woman.

"Hmm, my father said that Lothur could pick up to three awards for his performance at the Province Conference." She explained to that old fellow. "So we want to go in to pick them."

The old fellow looked Lothur up and down but felt nothing from this strange fellow. Unfortunately, he could not do anything against the patriarch's order, which had already reached him before Viktoria even left to come to this place.

"Very well, you will have 24 hours to choose something. After that period..." He was saying, but Lothur interrupted him.

"Sir, 24 hours is too short. I intend to ingest a pill that will put me into hibernation inside this place, and I need more time. How about 26 hours?" Lothur said, considering that this was the safest place he knew of for him to be able to stay unconscious that long.

"Pill? Why will you do that here?" That man narrowed his eyes as he looked more seriously at Lothur.

"I made many enemies to help the family in that competition." Lothur used that to his advantage. "On the other hand, this pill might help me choose something more suitable for me. So I want to do it here, safely and with a chance to get the best from this place."

Lothur was being sincere. If he raised his mental attributes in this place, then it would be certain that he would more easily choose an item compatible with himself.

Hearing this fellow's justification, this man, the Frost family treasure security leader, was silent for a moment. He felt there would be no problems since Viktoria would go along with Lothur.

"Very well, I will give you the 26 hours. But if you have not woken up after that time, you will lose your opportunity to remove three items from this place." He said firmly, not expecting thanks from Lothur and opening the large metal door behind him.

Then, the two entered that dark place, carrying torches in their hands and slowly following the narrow path in front of them.

"This place looks like it was made to scare people..." Lothur commented as he noticed the spider webs in the corners of the walls, uneven path, and the smell of wet dirt in that place.

Viktoria smiled at him and said. "But it's obvious. The family treasury is not a giant vault with items stored on shelves... It is a huge labyrinth with traps and all kinds of artifices to distract and frighten those who dare to enter here."

"So every noble who enters here has to deal with the place as if he were on a test?" Lothur questioned his wife.

"Yes and no." Viktoria said. "Not just anyone can get in here. To give you an idea, not even my father can assign a person to enter here by sheer will."

"Uh? But wasn't he the one who authorized me to come here?"

"He recommended you, and after you earned the right to enter here, he gave the orders for the people related to this place to allow you to enter." Viktoria explained with a proud expression on her face.

"Recommended me to whom?" Lothur's eyes sharpened as he discovered new things about this family.

She began to explain. "Our family had more than one Saint in the remote past. Precisely because of that, we have something called a Memory Crystal. That is an item that can contain part of the soul fragment of those experts who decided to leave something behind in this place."

A Memory Crystal could absorb parts of soul fragments from countless people to form something like a council that gathered the memories of each of these people. The result of that? The crystal could analyze whether or not a person was worthy of something and give a verdict on the prize or punishment that person deserved.

In the case of the Frost family, this crystal could analyze whether someone deserved a prize and automatically gave permission for that person to enter the family treasury.

"Anyway, my father recommended you to the Memory Crystal and reported your accomplishments. After some time, the wills within the crystal decided that you could choose up to three items from this place. So for you and I, who they have also approved, the defensive items here are off."

This family's Memory Crystal was connected to the family treasure. Hence, it could deactivate or activate the traps in this place, which justified Viktoria's earlier line about not even her father having the ability to authorize anyone to enter there.

Viktoria continued. "So, people must prove good enough to get in here. But since we've already done that, we don't have to go through any tests. We just have to worry about finding the remaining items from this place and choosing what we want within our limits."

"Oh? So it's simpler than I thought..."