Chapter 97: SSS-rank Spatial Ring Divine Artifact

After dinner, Kei returned to his bedroom.

The thought that Sora had inadvertently brought up kept lingering in his mind.

Growing ingredients themselves really was the only way their shop could create its own supply of potions.

If he could create a suitable place to nurture herbs, the problem of potion costs would be solved. But to do that, Kei needed to find an item he had put away a long time ago.

He began rummaging through his belongings in the room.

Kei’s room never had much in it.

A bed, a wardrobe, a desk, and a few boxes neatly stacked in the corner. But after living in Korea for a while, he had grown used to not needing the items from his past. So, those things were gradually pushed to the deepest part of the room, almost completely forgotten.

While searching, Kei recalled the day Grandma Kim Hye Ji took him in.

Back then, his body was caked with mud, and his clothes were so tattered they barely covered him anymore. After washing up and putting on the new clothes she had prepared, Kei stepped outside and saw that she had already washed his old clothes clean.

Grandma Kim carefully folded them and placed them into Kei’s hands.

"These are yours. Don’t throw them away, I’ve washed and dried them thoroughly."

Kei just silently stared at her back then.

Grandma Kim didn’t mind his cold and guarded expression. She took Kei’s hand, led him into the small room that had been cleaned up, and gave a kind smile.

"From today on, this is Kei’s room. I’ve also placed all your belongings on the bed."

Kim Hye Ji smiled, the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes curving gently.

"Think of this place as your home in this world!"

That was the first time in many years Kei had a room that truly belonged to him.

It was precisely for that reason that he had stored those items in the deepest part of the room, as if just by not seeing them, the old memories wouldn’t find their way back, allowing Kei to devote his entire mind to embracing his new life here.

Kei frowned, trying to remember where he had put them.

"Where on earth is it?"

He opened the wardrobe, checked every drawer, then bent down to search behind the old boxes. Nothing.

Then, Kei knelt down beside the bed.

Under the bed were a few thin layers of dust. He reached his hand deeper, and his fingers quickly touched a hard object.

Kei’s eyes lit up.

"So it was here all along!"

He pulled the object out.

It was a large box covered in dust. Kei brushed the dust off the lid with his hand, then sat down on the floor and slowly opened it.

Inside were only two items.

A dark brown leather belt and a plain silver ring.

Kei stared at the ring for a long time.

The reason his belongings were so few was precisely because he had this item.

The plain silver ring before him was an SSS-rank spatial ring, an item said to rival divine artifacts. It had once held all of Kei’s possessions, from rare materials, various types of mana stones, magic scrolls, money, to countless items he had accumulated over many years.

But after Kei fell into Korea, the ring had been pulled through the space-time corridor along with him.

The space inside it was twisted and destroyed.

All the items stored within were crushed into dust. The things that had once been so valuable that kingdoms on that continent would fight over them ultimately amounted to nothing but meaningless fragments floating in the void inside the ring.

Kei had thought this ring was nothing more than a broken piece of jewelry. Yet when he picked it up, he still sensed a very faint fluctuation from within.

Kei gently channeled his mana into the ring to check its internal state.

There was no brilliant light like in the old days, only a tiny fluctuation, like a breath echoing from somewhere far away.

Kei held his breath.

The space inside the ring... hadn’t disappeared.

It had changed.

It was no longer a massive storage with spatial compartments clearly divided by Kei. The internal structure had been completely destroyed, but from that chaos, something new was formed.

A world had been created.

Kei closed his eyes, focusing on his senses.

On the other side of the vague connection with the ring, he felt a vast expanse of ground, air that was thin but stable, along with a slow current of mana moving through the space. Further beyond were dark regions he could not yet make out clearly, as if that world had not yet fully awakened.

This was no longer an ordinary spatial ring. It felt like the real world.

Kei slowly opened his eyes.

At first, he had only intended to find a place to grow herbs.

But now, what lay before him was a far greater possibility.

If he could restore the space inside the ring, if he could stabilize that land and create an environment suitable for plants to grow, then he would not only solve the problem of materials.

He could turn it into an endless garden saturated with mana, something that did not exist in this world!

This was a domain that belonged entirely to Kei.

Kei lowered his head to look at the silver ring in his hand.

"What exactly have you become?"

The ring did not answer.

But from deep within it, a very faint vibration emanated, as if responding to its master’s call after a long slumber.

Kei tightened his fingers slightly around the ring.

In his eyes, which were always calm, a clear glimmer of anticipation appeared for the first time.

Even for a legendary mage, the transformation of this ring was truly astonishing, worthy of being one of the finest research specimens!

And Kei thought that now, this ring had perhaps truly... become what was called a divine artifact!