Chapter 321 - Collecting The Hoard.

Chad looked stared at the piles of gold and gems. “What should we do now?”

Zaleria slowly turned her head toward him with a passive face. “Throw everything into the maze, we can’t just leave it here.”

Hearing them Gracie extended her hand and created a small shadow hole. Anything that enters it ends up in her shadow pocket.

“I will get to cleaning then.” Gracie started swiping the gold away as if she was gathering the leaves in the garden.

Chad cracked his shoulders and walked toward her, “I will help as well, can’t let you do…” Before he could finish, a small golden portal appeared in front of him.

“You have a light pocket?” Zaleria asked with a confused face but soon remembered what that light is.

The golden portal quickly expanded and Ariel flew in kicking Chad in the face. He took that hit without moving an inch and stared at her, “At least put some force in it, I almost didn’t feel it!” Chad was surprised at how weak her kick was, almost forgetting how strong he has gotten.

“You know how much power I had to use against that dracolich?” She yelled at him as Sofia, Alice, Selena, Hati, Reith, and Mei walked in from the portal.

“COCOA look at all of this gold!” Reith exclaimed and Mei quickly jumped into the pile of gems.

“What happened to all the undead outside?” Zaleria asked as she wasn’t feeling them anymore.

“Ara, Ara! Have you forgotten us?” Bela flew in on a broom with Amaya sitting behind her, “I did feed them to her. They shouldn’t be a problem anymore.” She pointed at Amaya.

When Ariel stared at Amaya, she could sense the same disgusting presence Bela sensed in her before.

“How in the…What is that thing?” Ariel comprehends Amaya’s existence. She personally was weak, barely compared to an average human. Yet dripping from her was a dreaded feeling, hundreds if not thousands of undead are linked to her body.

“She is but a humble maid, please treat her well!” Bela smiled.

“Said the lich who I almost missed because of that maid’s existence. Chad do you have a hand in this?” Ariel turned toward Chad. Out of all people here, he was the only one she could expect to do something crazy like that.

“Don’t look at me like that, even though I barely understood her. This was my son’s doing.” Chad quickly tried to push the blame back at Cain.

“Then it’s your fault for not keeping it down! And from when do you even have a son?” She rushed at him with an angry face.

“I just recently got to know him, he’s pretty amazing!” Chad smiled and Ariel sighed. She knew this man for over twenty years and this is the first time she heard he has a son. ‘His son must be old, I wonder how many of them there are out there?’

“Let’s get to work, don’t tell me you’re going to slack at the best part?” Zaleria dragged the both of them. There were a lot of things that can be solved quickly with a dragon’s might but cleaning (Collecting all of Morena’s hoard) was not a thing she found pleasurable or fun. To her, she was just cleaning her big sister’s dirty room.

After a few minutes of cleaning, Sofia asked Zaleria something. “If this is Morena’s hoard, how large is yours?”

Zaleria looked up and thought about it, “A lot bigger than this, probably five times the amount if not more. Morena used to actively spend her wealth on researching her necromancy and such.”

Sofia thought about it, she remembers Daraku saying that a single seventh-tier spell sold for up to 100000 gold coins. That would definitely tax even a dragon’s hoard, especially if they wanted to keep a low profile.

It was then that she thought about another interesting question. “Then…if spells are that expensive, how much do you think Cain’s magic is worth?” Sofia was worried about how much Cain had potentially spent on her, just thinking about how [firestorm] that he causally taught her was over 100000 gold coins makes her stomach twist.

“I can’t give an accurate estimate but it’s big, just the maze alone would probably be more valuable than my hoard. You have to count the utility of the spells as well. Isn’t this the reason the princes wanted to marry him and why the king couldn’t do a thing about him ruling Ourals?” Zaleria glared at her. “If Cain sold his magic to an opposing country, this kingdom will be doomed. On top of that, witches’ magic is more complicated than normal magic. I bet the spell he taught to you are twice as valuable for how rare they can be.”

Thinking about how much Cain had spent on her, Sofia’s stomach twisted and she threw up in the corner. She never held over a gold coin before meeting him and now he might have spent over a million on her. The anxiety of not being worth how much he spent made her legs weak.

Zaleria started to laugh, “Not used to such a large amount of money? You better get used to that quickly as I want you to start collecting a hoard of your own.”

Zaleria could feel it, the draconic blood in Sofia had already started to boil. Soon she will evolve into a half-dragon. The hoard was a dragon’s pride so she wanted her granddaughter to have a decent one.

“It’s pretty hard to start but after you get a decent amount it will be easier to collect more. It’s a tradition that the parents give their children a part of their hoard to start their own, I will give you about a quarter million as a start!” Zaleria smiled.

BLUH! Sofia threw up again, “N-no thank you…I-I will collect my own…If I have to!” Sofia couldn’t imagine carrying all that money without actually working for it.

The reason she was leaving all the marriage preparation mostly to Alice is that she couldn’t even spend 100 gold on wedding furnishing without almost dying of anxiety. She felt more comfortable cooking and fighting than doing that.

“You always like this, even though that Cain told you to use how much you want. You always end up asking him or me about every penny you want to use.” Alice walked toward them with a smile.

“Even though you don’t mind sucking the life out of him when fighting. I would say that is more dangerous!” Alice barely held her laugh as she realized how what she said sounded.

“That’s and that are different matters!” Sofia cried.

“Straight to the point, you’re a dragon so get used to gold. And a lot of it at that.” Zaleria pushed Sofia toward the gold pile.

CRACK! The moment she touched Sofia’s back, Zaleria felt the skin in her palm freeze. “What is this?” Zaleria quickly pushed some flames to her palm and stared at Sofia.

“Ah! Sorry I forget to turn it off!” Sofia apologized.

“Turn what off?” Zaleria glared at her.

“A trick I learned when fighting in the snow, I could absorb heat from the things around me to fuel my flames instead of Mana. Since we fight Morena I started using it so I won’t tax Cain too much and I forget to stop using it.” Sofia laughed it off as a slight mistake.

Zaleria stared at her in surprise, red dragons could freeze things and absorb heat. But even she couldn’t keep that active all the time, they weren’t white dragons after all.

Sofia smelled a lot like her mother which was red, and her horns are growing forward like that of her father who was a black dragon. She could keep the freezing for a long time as well.

Zaleria’s mother once fought the dragon king and wounded him so badly that he had to stay in bed for a year. To this day the scar on his neck has never healed. After that, her mother left and was never seen again.

‘Didn’t Cain say she couldn’t learn magic other than fire magic? There now was she could be one…’ Zaleria thought as she shook the idea from her head. It was too early to say and throwing a lot of expectations on Sofia might lead her to a dawn ward spiral of depression.

“Yeah, you better turn it off. It might kill someone.” Zaleria said with a passive face.