Luke had seen wind, earth, psychic, and shadow artifacts, but he suddenly realized something was missing.
Why hadn't he seen a single ice-attribute artifact yet?
Knowing how heavily attribute matching mattered, this didn't make any sense. The Silver Moon Corporation was famous across the entire world for its ice-attribute awakeners. They should have a good selection of ice-related items.
He stopped and turned to the secretary, asking her directly where the ice artifacts were kept.
The secretary gave a knowing smile.
"Right this way," she said softly.
She led him past the main display aisles and toward a sealed, heavily reinforced alcove in the back of the vault. As soon as they got close, Luke could feel the freezing fluctuations of ice power leaking into the air.
"These three items were created by our corporation's absolute best Alchemists," the secretary explained with a hint of pride. "You will not find them anywhere else on the open market. They have fewer limitations, much milder side effects, and far more raw power than standard gear. In fact, they are very close to being classified as high-rank artifacts."
Luke stepped up to the reinforced glass and examined the three premium items.
[Silver-Frost Aegis Pendant]
Attribute: Ice / Defense.
Use: Instantly generates a highly compressed, diamond-hard shield of ice around the user when triggered. It can completely block mid-to-high-tier physical strikes and elemental attacks.
Duration: The shield lasts until it is violently shattered by an enemy, or until the user stops supplying soul power to it.
Limitation: It is exceptionally weak against pure fire-attribute attacks, which will melt the barrier twice as fast.
Side Effect: It drops the user's core body temperature temporarily, leaving their skin cold and their breath visible in the air.
[Glacial-Thread Bracer]
Attribute: Ice / Crowd Control.
Use: Fires invisible threads of freezing energy that wrap around an enemy's limbs. It instantly slows their movements, stiffens their joints, and spreads painful frostbite.
Duration: The freezing effect lasts for up to 15 minutes, depending on the enemy's physical strength.
Limitation: It has a relatively short range. The target must be within thirty feet for the threads to properly connect.
Side Effect: The arm wearing the bracer will go slightly numb and tingle for a few minutes after the battle ends.
[Ever-Cold Mind Crystal]
Attribute: Ice / Support.
Use: Worn on the forehead or neck, it forcefully cools the user's mind. It grants absolute mental clarity, prevents panic during near-death combat, and slightly boosts the raw damage of the user's own ice abilities.
Duration: Can be kept active passively for up to 24 hours without draining much energy.
Limitation: It requires a pure ice-attribute user to function correctly. Anyone else who tries to use it will get zero benefits.
Side Effect: Prolonged use makes the user's emotions completely flat. They will temporarily struggle to feel anger, joy, or empathy until the crystal is taken off.
Luke read through the options carefully.
These were incredibly tempting. As an ice user, any of these three items would give him a massive advantage in a sudden fight.
But as his eyes swept over the final display case in the freezing alcove, he saw something else.
It was a ring, and it was easily the most beautiful piece of jewelry he had ever laid eyes on. It looked as though it were made of pure glass, but swirling deep inside the band was something that looked like the deep ocean.
He looked down at the display plaque to read the description.
Unlike the detailed plaques of the other artifacts, this one was unusually short.
[3rd Ring of the Deep Sea — Possesses the power to suppress soul power to a certain extent.]
Noticing his interest, the secretary stepped closer. She explained the oddity without him even needing to ask.
"That piece was recovered from an ancient ruin," she said quietly. "Not much is known about it. Our corporate appraisers spent a long time studying it, but that minor suppression effect was the only function they could figure out."
When Luke saw those words on the plaque, a shock went through his body. He wasn't stunned by its beauty, its listed power, or the secretary's explanation. He was shocked by the name.
When Luke saw those words, a shock went through his body. He wasn't stunned by its beauty or its listed power. He was shocked by the name.
He had read about this ring in the novel. Well, not this exact one. The novel had specifically mentioned the 6th Ring of the Deep Sea. They were part of a set.
Finding this item right now was the perfect way to accomplish one of his major plans: training and gaining power.
Luke knew he could safely train his ice manipulation inside the corporation's facilities, but absolutely nothing else. The corporation was ruthless. They would undoubtedly plant bugged devices in his rooms to spy on him. If he practiced his other abilities, they would quickly realize that he knew about his ice seal and had gone through a second awakening.
He desperately needed outside help to train his three other powers. If he tried to figure it out entirely alone, it would take far too much time. He did not have the luxury of slow progress. With the dangers ahead, who in their right mind would accept slow progress?
Fortunately, there was someone on Earth who could teach and train him safely.
That person was an ancient being from the era of the 7th Trial and Tribulation. She was a survivor from 30,000 years ago, belonging to the lost Arcana civilization. That ancient human civilization was ten times more powerful than the current one. Even though they fell to ruin 10,000 years ago, humanity owed its current survival entirely to them. The Arcana civilization had left behind the bloodline extraction and evolution inheritances that modern awakeners relied on.
That ancient being's name was Petra Kross. She had officially left this world after the end of the 6th Trial.
Neither the novel nor Emily's System ever fully explained how Petra managed to leave. But the System knew about her. In the original plot, Emily's System gave her a mission and arranged for her to train under Petra.
The only reason training with Petra was even possible was because she had secretly sent an incarnation—an avatar—back down to this world. The System had stated that Petra's true main body was still alive, living somewhere in the far distances of the universe. She had sent this incarnation back to the world for a specific, mysterious purpose related to the world's final trial.
The greatest benefit to training under Petra was absolute secrecy. Her incarnation was designed so that it would not transfer any knowledge or memories back to her main body in space. Once the incarnation completed its mission, it would simply self-destruct. Petra Kross was someone who deeply respected privacy.
Because of this built-in privacy, the System had told Emily she could freely train under Petra without any fear of revealing her deepest secrets that did not include system existence. Therefore, Luke knew he could train all of his secret abilities under Petra's incarnation. He could fully disclose his powers to her without any fear of the corporation, the System, or anyone else finding out.
But how could he contact her?
The answer was in the rings. Petra Kross had originally created nine Deep Sea Rings. When she left the world, she left three of those rings behind. Now, her incarnation was actively looking for those three remaining rings, but she was trapped in a mysterious space and could not leave her location to find them.
If someone found a ring and returned it to her, she would grant them her help as a reward. The activation method was simple. If you dropped your blood onto the ring and spoke her name, the ring would instantly teleport you to the mysterious space where she stayed.
And now, right in front of Luke, sat one of those three precious rings.
He already knew the whereabouts of the other two rings from reading the novel. He had planned to go looking for one of them later, but finding one this early was an incredible stroke of luck.
In the original novel's timeline, it took Emily lots to find two of the rings. She used one for herself and kept the other one to give to Luke. However, she was never able to give it to him because their relationship was constantly challenged and broken apart by various incidents.
If Luke had to go out into the world to hunt down the rings himself, it would waste a massive amount of his precious time. It was incredibly good that he found it so early. Taking it now would also heavily decrease the chances of him falling under the notice of Emily's System.
He didn't need to look at any other artifacts. He had made his choice.