A journey to another world starting from a sword

Taking advantage of the "Blueberry Tower" buff effect: "Discover Relics", the specific effect is that you can see the fallen coins or gems emitting a hazy glow.

"Wait!" Asuna, Lisbeth, and Lingyin called out at the same time.

"What's wrong?" Dante was almost startled, so he stopped writing the silver coins and blinked.

"What did you just say, jewel?" Asuna leaned down and questioned her directly.

"..." Wait, wasn't that sentence not written in the strategy guide? Then Dante silently looked at Mito.

Mitt crossed his arms and continued to explain, "There are indeed valuable items such as gold coins and gems. A single D-grade gem is worth about 500 Cors, but both are quite rare. Even with the artifact discovery buff, they are hard to find. There are also rings and necklaces with magical effects, and other even rarer items."

"A ring? A necklace?" The girls' excitement grew even higher.

Asuna grabbed Dante's wrist. "Didn't you say you wanted to settle this quickly? Hurry up!"

Although she was scolded by her mother for frantically picking up red and white mochi during a groundbreaking ceremony near her home when she was in kindergarten in the real world, she doesn't need to think about whether it's appropriate for a lady to do such a thing in the virtual world.

Asuna, now completely uninhibited, eagerly grabbed Dante and headed out of the restaurant.

Unfortunately, the buff effect of the blueberry tart only lasts for one hour, and there is a limit of one per person per day, with a daily limit of thirty. Also, the buff is lost if you don't eat it in the store, so it cannot be taken away or resold.

As Dante led the way, Asuna let go of her hands and put them behind her back, a blush rising on her face. Her eyes drifted to the ruins on the left. "This doesn't seem to be in the circle."

Unbeknownst to her, she had already stepped outside the designated area. On the way there, she had seen many faintly glowing objects, but she had resisted the urge to pick them up.

"Hmm." Dante explained without turning his head, "During the closed beta, it seemed that relics would refresh with server maintenance, but now I don't know if they will reappear after I've picked them all up."

Asuna suddenly realized she hadn't considered this question before, and began to hesitate, "Then..."

This is indeed one of the few opportunities to make money within the community. Compared to those who have no shortage of accommodation and food expenses and can also make money by fighting monsters outside the city, those players who do not plan to leave the main area are the group that needs these relics the most. It is quite selfish of them to rush ahead of them and monopolize these relics.

“So we’re going down there.” Dante turned around and smiled reassuringly. “Down there is the outer circle, and it’s very dangerous as we’ll be facing monster attacks. Let the non-combat players pick up the relics in the town.”

As he spoke, he looked at Liz and Lingyin beside him, especially Liz, because Liz should understand very well how important initial funds are for non-combat players.

"I see." Lisbeth pounded her fist and said. She suddenly regretted that if she had waited until the fifth floor opened before learning the metallurgical skills, she wouldn't have suffered so much.

No, if she had done that, she might never have met Asuna and Silica. She also really likes her current guild leader and guild. It's all just fate.

“Hehehe…” Lingyin laughed sweetly, “Dante, you are so gentle.”

"Really?" Dante raised his head in confusion. "I think it should be quite ordinary."

"Mmm, so gentle." Lingyin smiled, speaking with perfectly measured, gentle words. "After all, none of us expected this..."

“Yes!” Silica nodded in agreement. “Dante is very gentle.”

"Thank you." Dante shook his head and continued walking forward. "Listen carefully, I'll briefly explain what's going on."

As I just mentioned to them, "Karuruin" is a town built on ruins, and beneath it lies an incredibly large underground cemetery.

It's actually a maze, and even wider than the main street.

The relics are most abundant there; compared to the relics that can be found in towns, they are nothing.

"...Wait a minute, the labyrinth means monster fruit, so it really is a ghost?" Asuna, who had deliberately forgotten about it, suddenly remembered the types of monsters Dante had mentioned when they went up the fifth step.

"It's alright, ghosts can be attacked, so that shouldn't be considered a real ghost, just a monster that looks like a ghost," Dante reassured her with a laugh, making Asuna breathe a sigh of relief.

"I...I know," Asuna said, trying to sound calm. She thought Dante was right; what could indeed be killed wasn't really a ghost.

Ah!

-----------------

"No! Noooooooo!" The sound that burst out even surpassed the ghost's miserable wail at one point. Asuna grabbed Dante's white cloak with all her might and buried her face deep in it.

Dante, who had originally planned to take up his sword and quickly dispatch the monster, was suddenly pulled back from his feet.

And it wasn't just Asuna hiding behind him; Silica and Rein also each grabbed a corner of their cloaks.

"But... Dante..." "Ah!!!"

While it feels good to be trusted, influencing actions is another matter entirely.

It seems my guess was too optimistic. I thought that with the reassurance I just gave her, Asuna would be able to fight to some extent, but now there are three of them who can't move.

Dante then gestured to Mitt with his eyes, and Mitt sighed and said, "Leave it to me."

The "Desolate Undead" met its demise immediately under the fierce attack of Mit's scythe.

Before he died, his will-o'-the-wisps of eyes stared at Asuna, as if to say: I died a terrible death—

Now, Asuna absolutely refused to take her face off Dante's back.

“Strange, the monsters in the tomb should be scattered.” Mitt transformed his two-handed scythe into a one-handed scythe and walked towards Dante.

"That just means we weren't very lucky." Dante didn't take it seriously, and for a long time afterward, they didn't encounter any new monsters.

Furthermore, as they collected more and more relics, Asuna and the others gradually opened up.

"Another gold coin!" Lisbeth picked up a small gold coin worth five hundred cor from under the collapsed stone pillar, jumped up with joy, and waved to her companions.

"Your eyesight is amazing!" Mitt praised Dante, who had just pointed out the location of the gold coin.

"Thank you. I'm fairly confident in my eyesight." Bending down to pick up the silver coin from the ground, ignoring the copper coin beside him, Dante stood up and smiled modestly.

After putting the silver coins away, he continued, "Let's keep going."

He woke up his companions who were carefully searching the ground for copper coins, and took the lead.

After walking a dozen meters, he bent down again and picked up an irregularly shaped purple stone, which was the most basic gemstone.

"There are indeed fewer gems." Compared to the three small gold coins and one large gold coin that have already been found, this is the only gem we've found.

Placing the gem in dim light, it emitted a somewhat impure reflection. Dante passed the first gem he found to Asuna, who was closest to him.

"Ah, so this is a gemstone. It's quite beautiful." Asuna held the gemstone between two fingers, examining it closely.

"It will look even better after polishing." Shrugging his shoulders, Mito explained as he watched Asuna's delighted expression.

“Polishing…Mite, this gem can also be made into an ornament, right?” Asuna suddenly remembered the “crafting” skill that Mitt had learned, and the necklace around her neck that restored 5 HP per second was Mitt’s work.

“Hmm.” Mite chuckled and nodded, then shook her head and said, “However, D-grade gems probably can’t be used to make any decent jewelry. It’s more cost-effective to sell them for money.”

The materials she used before were mostly by-product minerals, which were small portions of non-metallic minerals obtained while mining metallic ores, such as moonstone and malachite.

However, those were rough stones that still needed rough processing, while Asuna's stones only needed polishing to get a decent-looking gem.

However, D-grade gems, in reality, are inferior gems with many impurities, and very little of them are usable, as can be seen from the proportion of them that can be converted into Cor.

After Asuna passed the purple gem around, she handed it back to Dante.

However, Dante didn't hesitate and threw it to Mitt, saying, "Even if you can't make rare equipment, it's good for practice."

Mitt carefully raised his hand to catch it, then squeezed the gem in his hand, saying with some regret, "What a waste, 500 Cors."

“Selling it to an NPC merchant would be a real waste, and it’s not like we can’t find it,” Dante retorted casually.

"Find... gems aren't that easy to find." Mitt muttered a little, not really believing it, but still put it in his pouch for the time being.

"It's not that easy to find," she thought to herself without much thought when she said it, but she soon realized... she was wrong.

Chapter 116: Making a Huge Profit

When he came to his senses, his pouch was already stuffed full of gems and gold coins, and he was also holding a handful of silver coins in his hand.

As for why they were all silver coins, it's because no one wanted to bend down and pick up a mere ten-cor copper coin!

"I can understand the feelings of scavengers a little better now." Asuna, also holding a full bag of treasure, let out a long breath and was immersed in the joy of collecting relics.

No, scavengers won't be that lucky.

Mito, who had originally intended to refute Asuna, had his thoughts vanish in just half a second.

Two hundred and three silver coins, equivalent to one hundred kor.

The equivalent of 500 Corsos is 41 small gold coins.

Seventeen large gold coins, equivalent to one thousand cors.

Grade D gems: 35.

Grade C gems: Six.

Grade B gem: one.

A necklace that seems to possess some kind of magical effect: seven necklaces.

Five bracelets that also seem to have some kind of magical effect.

The rings also seem to possess some kind of magical effect: twelve of them.

Aside from the scattered copper coins they picked up along the way, this was the result of just one hour. Although the buff from discovering relics had long since worn off along the way, Dante, with his keen eyesight, led everyone to discover a large number of precious relics.

"How much did we actually make?" Silica asked curiously, her joyful question eliciting chuckles from everyone.

“Hmm…” As the first discoverer, Dante thought for a moment, “There are probably more than 10 Cor.”

“So many!!!” Lisbeth exclaimed in surprise, her voice echoing in the empty room.

She was surprised, but others, including Mitt, found it unbelievable as well. She had always thought they had only earned around 40,000 or 50,000.

As for 100,000... when averaged among six people, it's roughly equivalent to the income a frontline player earns in a day's hard work, and there's basically no danger involved.

Not to mention the fun of collecting the relics, and the battles along the way, which gave rise to a sense of peace and satisfaction.

"One hundred thousand per hour, that means... if we keep looking, we can get hundreds of thousands of Cor?" Lingyin counted on her fingers, her face beaming with joy.

"Then what are we waiting for!" Lisbeth raised her fist, walked past Dante, and shouted, "Let's go!!!"

"..." Dante paused for a moment, then joked, "Aren't you going to sleep tonight?"

“What’s the point of sleeping now?” Lisbeth retorted, turning her head as if she wanted to earn all the money in her life in one go.

"Does everyone think so too?" Dante looked around at the other girls and found that they were all nodding their heads in agreement.

"Well, anyway, even if we don't take anything, those guys from the Aincrad Alliance will probably loot this labyrinth clean anyway," Mitt said righteously, one hand on his hip.

“Let’s go then.” Dante took a few steps forward, then remembered something. “By the way, it seems there are traps in this catacombs that can lead you directly into the underground tunnels. Be careful where you step, and don’t move around too much if you encounter enemies.”

As he said this, he deliberately looked at Asuna, Silica, and Lingyin meaningfully.

“I won’t move!” Silica assured Dante, placing her hand on her forehead, as she was determined to stay behind him.

"Um, I'll try my best." Lingyin gave an awkward laugh.

"What? I'm only startled when a monster suddenly appears." Asuna turned her face away cutely and muttered softly.

"Yes, yes," Dante replied casually.

-----------------

To their surprise, it was already the morning of the next day when they emerged from the tomb.

"It's Christmas Eve today." When Dante stepped onto the "long-lost" ground, he felt that the morning light was a little too bright, so he raised his arm to shield his eyes.

"After all, everyone's in high spirits," Asuna said with a small yawn.

"No, actually, the back part is completely numb." Mitt put the back of her hand to her lips, trying to fight off sleepiness, which caused tears to well up in the corners of her eyes.

Later on, the backpacks of just a few people were filled with countless gold coins, silver coins, gems and ornaments, proving that Dante's decision not to allow them to take copper coins from the beginning was correct.

At the same time, she also had deep doubts, because most of the time Dante was talking about where the relics were. Could it be that he chose "Dark Vision" as his fifth skill?

Moreover, she felt that this was more like a skill outside the system than a skill.

Her gaze lingered on the blond knight's retreating figure, then she shook her head, thinking, "Never mind, it's not important."

She believed in Dante as always.

“No, I’m very happy!” Lisbeth declared loudly, pointing her index finger at the rising sun, her smile somewhat stiff from having lasted for hours.

Although President Dante stated from the beginning that the silver coins would be split equally and the gold coins would be kept by Vice President Asuna as guild funds, even the silver coins were still a huge sum of money.

Whenever she thought about this, Lisbeth felt that today was the second happiest day since she came to SAO.

Lisbeth's words immediately elicited good-natured and agreeable laughter from everyone, prompting Lisbeth to exclaim, "What?!"

For identifying items with unknown attributes, we'll leave it to Lisbeth, who has already learned the "Identification" skill.

Because getting an appraisal from an NPC appraiser would cost money, which Lisbeth simply couldn't accept.

She clearly has the "appraisal" skill, yet she still goes to the NPC shops with signs in the Karuruin Shopping District to have the shopkeepers appraise her gems and jewelry. Wouldn't that make her "appraisal" skill a waste?

Giving it to her is a good opportunity for her to practice her skills; wouldn't that be killing two birds with one stone?