The black obsidian chest rested upon the cedar floorboards of Solitude Spire, radiating a faint, eerie luminescence that bent the morning sunlight around its carved silver hinges.
Arch-Herald Mal'Zok remained prostrated upon the timber, his forehead pressed firmly against the grain.
He did not dare lift his silver crescent mask.
Behind him, Lord Nether-Bane stood leaning on his iron garden rake, his green eye-sockets narrowing with professional curiosity.
"Go on then, shadow-lad," Nether-Bane grunted, nudging the heel of Mal'Zok's boot with the wooden rake handle. "Pop the latch. Let's see what kind of contraband ye brought the Master."
Mal'Zok swallowed hard, his shadowy fingers trembling as he reached forward.
With a soft, metallic click, the obsidian clasps fell open.
The lid swung back.
Inside the velvet-lined compartment rested twenty-four cubic stones of pure, pitch-black crystal.
They did not sit heavily against the bottom of the box.
Instead, they hovered half an inch in the air, drifting gently like weightless charcoal marshmallows.
Each cube absorbed all ambient illumination, casting no shadow whatsoever.
Faint wisps of chilled, sub-zero mist curled from their razor-sharp facets, yet the cedar wood beneath remained completely dry and free of condensation.
Mal'Zok raised his trembling hands toward the ceiling.
"Supreme Lord of the Radiant Sun!" Mal'Zok chanted in a reverent, quavering tone. "Our master, High Sovereign Xylarion, presents the ultimate tribute of the Outer Dark—twenty-four fragments of Pure Negative-Mass Dark Matter! Harvested from the core of a collapsed hyper-galaxy, these stones possess inverse gravitational inertia and absolute thermal absorption! They can power an astral battle-station for a hundred thousand years!"
Down from his hammock, Felix Vance leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
He squinted at the floating black cubes.
He blinked once, then twice.
A floating blue bracket appeared directly above the obsidian chest.
【Item: Negative-Mass Dark Matter Crystals (Pristine Reagent)】 【Physics Properties: Zero Mass / Sub-Zero Thermal Absorption】 【Condensation Rate: 0.0% [Hydrophobic & Non-Melting]】 【Chemical Reactivity: Completely Inert In Alcoholic Solutions】 【Inspector Note: A high-tier spatial anomaly prized by cosmic warlords for creating reality-collapsing gravity wells. However, because it absorbs ambient heat without ever melting into liquid water, it functions as the ultimate luxury reusable ice cube for chilled summer beverages. Will never dilute your expensive plum wine. Safe for human food contact.】
Felix’s eyes lit up with pure, unadulterated delight.
"Wait a second," Felix breathed, leaning down from the hammock to hover his hand over the chest. "Are these... reusable ice cubes that don't melt?"
Mal'Zok froze in mid-prayer.
The herald tilted his silver mask upward, bewildered by the mortal phrasing.
"My... my Lord?" Mal'Zok stammered. "They are the Condensed Seeds of the Void! They possess negative gravitational mass and—"
"Yeah, yeah, negative mass, whatever," Felix interrupted, reaching directly into the chest.
Lyra gasped in terror, her hand reaching out instinctively.
"Senior Brother, be careful! The primordial cold of the deep chasm can wither a cultivator’s soul in an instant!"
Felix picked up one of the floating black cubes with his bare thumb and forefinger.
The stone was delightfully cold—smooth like polished glass, completely dry to the touch, and feather-light.
In fact, it felt lighter than air, gently tugging upward against his fingers like a helium balloon.
Thanks to the roaring 1.0-Earth-Mass solar core in his chest, the sub-zero chill didn't bother him in the slightest.
It felt like holding a refreshing ice pop on a hot July afternoon.
"This is incredible," Felix murmured, tossing the cube an inch in the air and catching it. "I hate regular ice cubes. You put three ice cubes into a nice cup of sweet plum wine, and within ten minutes, they melt into lukewarm tap water and ruin the whole flavor profile."
He walked over to the wooden icebox near the kitchen door.
He retrieved a green ceramic jug of fermented summer plum wine that the academy kitchens had sent up yesterday, along with a clean glass tumbler.
Felix pulled the cork from the jug and poured three ounces of amber wine into the glass.
Then he casually dropped two of the negative-mass dark matter cubes into the drink.
*CLINK.*
The black cubes bobbed weightlessly in the center of the liquid, sending tiny, sparkling ribbons of frosty vapor through the amber wine.
Felix swirled the glass gently.
Within five seconds, the exterior of the tumbler frosted over with a thin, perfect glaze of cold mist.
Felix lifted the glass to his lips and took a slow, appreciative sip.
His eyes widened.
The plum wine was chilled to exactly forty degrees Fahrenheit—crisp, tart, refreshingly sweet, and completely undiluted.
"Oh man," Felix sighed, letting out a blissful breath that plumed in the morning air. "That is perfection. That’s top-shelf tavern quality right there. Crisp, cold, and zero watered-down aftertaste."
He looked down at Mal'Zok, who was staring up at him with unblinking, horrified disbelief.
*The Seed of the Void...*
*The cosmic relic that could collapse an entire planetary sector into a gravitational singularity...*
*He dropped it into a cup of fermented fruit juice to keep it cold!*
Felix walked back to the cedar table and looked at the remaining twenty-two dark matter cubes in the chest.
"Traveling merchant," Felix said with a pleased smile, "I'll take the whole crate. How much do you want for it?"
Mal'Zok’s shadowy throat bobbed nervously.
"T-Take... the crate?" Mal'Zok whispered, his mind racing. "The High Sovereign offers these as tribute to appease your divine wrath! We seek only a covenant of non-destruction!"
Felix frowned slightly, scratching his cheek.
"Look, man, I don't like taking stuff for free," Felix said, shaking his head. "Every game has a trade karma mechanic. If you take rare loot without trading back, your NPC reputation drops and traders stop spawning at your camp."
Felix patted the pockets of his violet void-silk robe.
He found nothing in his pockets except a few dry lint balls.
He looked over at the tea tray on the cedar table.
Beside the teapot sat a small ceramic jar containing loose roasted barley tea leaves, along with a half-eaten dry salted biscuit on a porcelain saucer.
Felix scooped a generous handful of the dry roasted barley grains into a clean linen napkin.
Then he picked up the half-eaten salted biscuit, wrapped it carefully inside the napkin, and tied the corners with a piece of hemp twine.
He extended the small cloth bundle toward Mal'Zok.
"Here," Felix said in a firm, businesslike tone. "Fair trade. A handful of premium roasted barley tea and half a salted oat biscuit. The biscuit has a little salt on top, so eat it before it gets stale."
The AetherDeck in Felix's pocket buzzed with a transaction chime.
Mal'Zok stared at the humble cloth bundle with trembling hands.
He hesitated for a second, then reached out and cradled the bundle against his chest as though it were the most sacred relic in creation.
As his fingers brushed the coarse linen, Mal'Zok’s cosmic perception probed the contents.
His soul screamed in shock.
The roasted barley grains had spent three days sitting on the cedar table of Solitude Spire, directly within the concentrated solar radiation envelope of Felix's dantian.
Each tiny golden grain was saturated with pure, unrefined stellar life-force.
A single grain held enough hydrogen-helium vitality to rejuvenate a dead, barren world and ignite life across an entire quadrant!
And the salted biscuit—infused with the Master’s sacred saliva from the first bite—radiated the holy, primordial law of eternal existence!
"The Sacred Solar Grain..." Mal'Zok wept openly, tears of dark matter leaking beneath his silver mask. "The Bread of Cosmic Rebirth! With this tribute, the Sovereign’s dying void empire can sustain its core for three million cycles!"
Mal'Zok dropped his forehead to the cedar timber, sobbing with overwhelming gratitude.
"The Sovereign of the Outer Dark accepts the divine barter!" Mal'Zok cried out. "We are eternally unworthy of your boundless benevolence, Oh Supreme Lord of the Hearth!"
Felix took another sip of his ice-cold plum wine and nodded approvingly.
"Glad you like the tea," Felix said lazily, walking back to his hammock. "It’s good for digestion. Tell your boss if he brings more ice cubes next week, I’ll throw in a handful of dried plums."
Mal'Zok bowed six more times, clutching the cloth bundle to his breast as he backed away toward the garden path on his knees.
Beside the porch, Lyra Ashford fell to her knees in worship, her eyes shining with holy revelation.
"Senior Brother's mercy knows no bounds," Lyra whispered with trembling lips. "He exchanges stones of absolute destruction for the grains of eternal life. He turns conquerors into humble pilgrims with a single cup of wine."
Down in the cabbage patch, Lord Nether-Bane gave Mal'Zok a friendly nod as the herald scurried past.
"Good trade, shadow-lad," Nether-Bane chuckled, leaning on his rake. "Next time, bring some negative-mass rum. We’ll show ye how real pirates drink!"
Felix reclined in his hammock, the cold plum wine resting securely on the table beside him.
Under the front left table leg, the Sovereign Heart Seal remained steady and unyielding.
And in his Dantain, the white dwarf core spun smoothly, keeping the porch at a perfect, cozy seventy degrees.