After Diane looted the first of the true chests, Bella and I both went forward to loot it ourselves. However, after Bella opened the chest, there was nothing inside. Similarly, the chest was empty for me as well.
Curious about this development, I signalled for Diane to wait before starting to work on the rest of the chests, sending a message to Karlson. If anyone would know what was going on, it would be him.
As it turned out, he had long ago read the information about locked chests, so I explained what he told me. “It looks like locked chests operate on a different mechanism than normal dungeon chests. They have higher drop rates, with at least one skill or piece of equipment guaranteed every time they are opened. However, they can each only be opened once per run, so there is no benefit to bringing in a large number of people like there would be for normal chests.”
“On the other hand, it doesn’t matter who is the one to unlock them. The same person can unlock the same chest multiple times, with the chests resetting once a day. Because of this, the loot from a locked chest is usually distributed to the entire party, but the one who opened the chest has the first pick from what dropped.”
When I said this, Diane’s eyes widened, looking at the remaining chests. “So that’s why there are so many chests here. It’s to make up for the fact that each one can only be looted once a day.” Of course, although she said that, we didn’t know how many of the chests would turn into mimics.
“Should we go ahead and test the new skill?” Bella asked curiously. “If it’s Transform… maybe it’s the master version of Disguise?”
“No, I already have Disguise at the master rank.” I said, shaking my head. “And this dungeon isn’t nearly high enough for us to even consider the possibility of it dropping a grandmaster skill. So… who wants to be the one to learn it?”
The three of us looked at one another, before Bella ultimately raised her hand. “I’ll do it.” She said, and Diane handed the skill book over to her. There was a small burst of light as Bella learned the skill, before looking at the description. “It looks like this is a magic skill… As for the effects…”
She focused, her body seeming to morph in front of us, shrinking down. A moment later, with a gasp, she finished changing. However, she now looked like a perfect copy of Diane, complete with Diane’s current outfit. That said, her voice was still clearly that of Bella’s when she talked. “Oh wow, that burns a ton of mana! Even with the buff from being a Lord, it nearly burnt out all of my mana to transform.”
Diane blinked, walking around Bella and seeming to appraise her. “Aside from the voice, the transformation is impeccable. How long can you hold the transformation?” She asked, and ‘Bella’ blinked.
“Uhm, it’s not consuming mana anymore to maintain. It just took a massive amount for the initial transformation. And, if I want to turn back, I have to activate the skill again.” When Diane heard that, her eyes widened in surprise.
“A permanent disguise skill? No, that’s not right. It’s like the name implies, it’s a transformation skill. Until you choose to revert back to normal, this is your new body. What are the conditions for transformation?” She asked, and Bella nodded her head.
“When I activated the skill, I got a list of people that I could turn into. There were the two of you, and also some of the elves back from Elvenwall, and a few of the chimerae.” Bella explained, causing Diane to nod her head.
“It should be based on familiarity, then. How well you understand the appearance of the target.” She said, before looking at her current counterpart. “How much longer until you can turn back? I have to admit that this is a little weird, hearing someone else’s voice coming out of my body.”
“S-sorry. Give it a few more minutes. Like I said, this burnt through a lot of mana.” Bella apologized, and I lowered my head in thought, which wasn’t unnoticed by the transformed elf. “Did you think about something?”
“One of the benefits of being a king that was listed in the patch notes. It said that skills related to the king’s trait were more likely to appear in dungeons in that king’s territory. I had been wondering what that meant, since none of the skills we had seen so far in the last two dungeons seemed at all related to my trait.” When I said that, Diane glanced over.
“So you think one of the ‘relations’ the patch notes implied would translate to ‘skills with an incredibly high mana burden’?” She asked, to which I nodded my head. “That would make sense. In that case, it wouldn’t be strange to find skills like your projections or construction skill in your territory eventually. Other reasonable relations could be skills that reduce global mana burden, or increase your total mana available.”
After Diane was done explaining, Bella was finally able to reactivate her Transform skill, returning to her normal appearance. Bella shuddered, hugging her arms. “That felt weird.”
Diane gave a nod, allowing Bella’s mana to once again recover before starting to unlock the next chest. “I could see Transform being a highly valuable skill. Once we’re done with this room, there are some experiments that I’d like to do, if that’s alright Bella?” She asked, and the elven woman nodded her head.
With that taken care of, the three of us cleared out the room of mimics. In the end, there were six other ‘true’ chests, with the rest trying to devour Diane as soon as she attempted to open them. For our loot, we obtained four more Transform books, five Disguise books, a staff, and a helmet.
The aesthetics of the equipment were… concerning, with the edges of the helmet along the neck and eyes being lined with teeth, its surface covered with pulsing veins. Similarly, that staff looked like a long, fleshy limb that had been twisted into shape, a seven-fingered hand at the end holding a red eye.
Their performance, however, was even more unusual. From what I could tell, their bonuses were below typical items of their level, but they possessed the ability to devour items of the same type, growing stronger as they did. In addition, their appearance could be changed into one of the items that they had devoured.
Diane’s eyes gleamed as she realized the possibilities with these items. “Growth type items. Although their starting power is low, I’m sure there are a lot of players who would go crazy over these.”
With the last of the chest monsters taken care of, Diane turned to Bella. “Okay, are you ready to start the tests? They should be simple, but the mana burden means it will take a little while.” She clarified, to which Bella nodded her head. “Okay. Try to channel the skill. However, instead of choosing one of the options it gives you, focus on yourself, but with long, green hair.”
Bella blinked, but did so, closing her eyes and focusing. Energy seemed to roll along her skin, her brows furrowed in concentration. Suddenly, with a gasp, Bella clutched at her chest. Her hair erupted from her head, shifting from red to green in an instant.
I immediately recognized the signs of mana burnout, so I looked at Diane urgently. Diane nodded her head, pulling out a potion and passing it to Bella. “Sorry. I didn’t think it would increase the cost by that much. If you need to create a chant to reduce the cost, feel free. I’ve got two more tests that I would like to do, once you’ve recovered.”
Bella was gasping with every breath, eyes bloodshot as she accepted the potion to quickly drink it. There was still pain etched all over her face, but it gradually began to recede as she recovered.
Once she was done, Diane declared her second test. “This time, I’d like you to try to change into yourself, but as a beastfolk. I’ll leave the type of beastfolk up to you.”
Bella gulped, nodding her head. This time, she didn’t try to simply charge into the transformation. Instead, she focused, creating an incantation to help ease the cost. “Mask of many faces, ethereal form. Grant me the form of a beast.”
As she spoke, energy rolled off her skin again. Then, her elven ears dulled to be far more human, and feline ears sprouted atop her head, a tail behind her. Thankfully, it seemed that the chant had helped, as she didn’t suffer from mana burnout. Diane’s eyes widened once again, amazed by the skill. “One… one more.” She said, gulping thickly. “Next time, try to just change your clothes. They changed into mine when you turned into me, so the skill clearly has the power to alter items. Make it heavy armor if you can.”
Bella nodded her head, waiting for her mana to eventually recover. Once it did, she focused, using another chant to change her attire. She now looked like a green-haired catfolk warrior, her brown tunic replaced with silver armor that covered her from the neck down.
Diane pursed her lips, pulling her dagger out. “I won’t cut you, just hold still for a moment. I need to test the durability.” She said, making Bella freeze as Diane brought her dagger to the armor. It pierced through the ‘metal’ layer with relative ease, but Diane didn’t press it in any further. Instead, she immediately withdrew the dagger and stepped back, allowing Bella to relax.
“This is an incredibly powerful cosmetic skill.” Diane explained. “Okay… I shouldn’t say powerful. Valuable is more accurate. The function of an item won’t change, nor will its stats. However, its appearance can be freely modified. In addition, the only mana investment is at the moment of activation, so players wouldn’t need to maintain a costly skill. Drake, can you step out of the room for a minute?”
I blinked, looking at Diane in confusion. “Why?”
Diane’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Because I need Bella to take her armor off to see if it maintains its current shape when unequipped.” She said, and my eyes widened. Without hesitation, I left the room, moving back to the first hallway.
A few minutes later, Diane called for me to return. When I did, I saw that Bella had returned to her normal appearance, her cheeks flushed, and Diane was nodding her head in satisfaction. “People will pay a lot for a skill like this.” She said confidently.
Meanwhile, I was still confused. “Will they? When I appraised the skill, it was only valued at five gold.”
Diane shook her head, turning to look straight at me. “You don’t understand players, Drake. We live for cosmetics. I could charge the same amount for one of these skill books as the Iron Forge charges for their cars, and players would happily pay it. Look at Nuoda, she willingly purchased and equipped a negative trait, just for a customized cosmetic.”
“Meanwhile, this skill allows more customization than purchasing a cosmetic trait, and can be reused if the player decides that they want a new look. More importantly, the change to their equipment means that they don’t have to worry about always getting custom items from specialized vendors in order to maintain their favorite appearance. Even if only five or six skill books drop a day, this could easily be Fallcry’s most profitable export.”
“We need to farm this dungeon, and kill the boss until the key drops.” She said in a firm tone. “We can’t risk the key to this dungeon ending up in the hands of another player. Otherwise, they could monopolize the skill books and growth items. We need to put this in Nuoda’s hands, turning the dungeon into an official item farm for Fallcry.”
I hadn’t seen Diane take such a firm stance on something in quite a while. Moreover, this wasn’t something directly for her ninja roleplay, but rather something that she could sell as a player. She genuinely believed that this was an investment that she could earn a large profit from, even more than when we sold off all of those dragons.
I knew that there were bound to be other dungeons where similar skills would drop. If not now, then in the near future. However, I wasn’t going to try to dampen Diane’s spirits, so I nodded my head. “Sure. Let’s see what we can do.”
