Chapter 73: Chapter 73: Troll Cave
To read up to 20 chapters ahead: https://www.patréon.com/SlyOW
---------------
Seeing Edward swallow such a huge cauldron of broth in a single breath was astonishing for sure, but the dwarves were gobsmacked by the changes Edward was going through.
In the past month, as Edward did not eat, his strong body had thinned a lot, and he looked frailer than Bilbo or Gandalf. But as he drank the broth and swallowed the meat, his stomach went hyperactive and worked alongside his healing factor to restore his body to his mint condition, hence his immense hunger.
As he dropped the cauldron to the ground, Edward strongly patted his chest a couple of times before silently releasing a breath. Feeling power regain his body and the extremely powerful cramps to have disappeared, Edward sighed in relief.
He was happy the pain was gone, and happy he was right about his conjecture.
He now had access only to gaseous Chi, about enough to condense a single liquid drop, but obviously not the same quality. This meant his seal had been released just enough to put him back to the peak of the Spirit Awakening Realm, both in body and Chi.
Of course, he was much stronger than back then. The same applied to his earlier situation, but now he also had access to more Chi, which wasn't in the same murky, imperfect way as back then, he Chi was already purified.
Now, Edward was certain that even if he were to fight against the three Trolls on his own and without any weapon, he would still kill them in a matter of seconds.
But as he caught himself thinking that, Edward felt a little surprised. He immediately thought of killing them… this universe sure was influencing him. Here, even between people of the same race killing was that big of a taboo, as long there was a reason of course.
So when fighting other species, going for the kill was simply… logical. He himself had killed all those Kronans, but it didn't feel the same, they were all made of rocks and didn't really feel alive, or organic at least. Those were different.
But it was pointless to think of that now, as he could see someone approaching from the distance. Waving his hand, he greeted, "Gandalf! You're back with us!"
This shook the dwarves out of their astonishment too as they followed his sight and saw Gandalf arriving on a tall white horse. He greeted back, "I was only scouting ahead… You seem to have recovered."
Bombur cut in, "By stealing all the food!"
The other dwarves laughed and made fun of their companion, while Gandalf smiled. After a moment, Gloin asked Thorin, "Should we go search for the Trolls' hideout?"
Gandalf frowned, "Trolls' hideout?"
Bilbo quickly explained the attack, and Thorin ordered, "Pack up your things, we will search for it on the way but we won't waste time searching aimlessly for it."
At that Gandalf assured, "No need to worry, I can lead us there. Show me the Trolls and I will find their hideout."
The company quickly gathered their things, and Edward could feel a few glances thrown his way and the smashed rock's as they did, the others were curious about his strength.
At the vestiges of the battle, the firepit had a few embers left, and the corpses of the Trolls were still there.
Normally, their bodies, even as corpses, would have turned to stone with the arrival of dawn, but because they were rather deep in the forest and there was a large rock blocking East, the light hadn't touched them yet, so they were still corpses of flesh and blood.
Gandalf moved to the least damaged one, the one killed by Edward, as the other two were grossly smashed to death by a gang of angry dwarves, and their corpses were not really in the best condition.
After pressing his staff against the Troll's body for a couple of seconds, Gandalf pointed to a certain direction and specified, "They didn't wander off to far, Trolls are generally cowards. It's barely a hundred meters that way."
Ori leaned closer to Balin and asked, "What do you think we will find in there? What do Trolls collect? Some gold?"
Balin snorted, "They're not dragons, Trolls don't care about gold. The Trolls probably took whatever the poor travellers they ate had on them and stuffed it in there. Whatever they couldn't stomach."
Kili added jokingly, "Probably some faeces too, Trolls are nasty."
Gandalf turned around and said in all seriousness, "We definitely will."
The dwarves suddenly looked disgusted, and looked hesitant to go. So Gandalf added, "Trolls would have been unable to dog the cave, so it's most certainly a natural cave that lived through the ages, so there could be treasures hidden in there."
Dwarves were known for their greed, and although it wasn't as pronounced in all of them as it was in Thror or the seven ancestors of dwarves, it was still there. So when they heard about possible treasures, all of their eyes lit up as they hastened their steps this time.
And just as Gandalf had said, the cave wasn't far away. It was not very big, the Trolls probably had to bend halfway to enter the cave, but it was quite wide so they could fit.
A few meters inside it was better though, in terms of size that is, as the smell that assaulted them as they entered the cave… A mix of old, dirty and… it was just disgusting.
Trying their best to cover his nose, Edward didn't look for treasures first, but for enemies. Not only could there be an additional Troll in here, there could also be troublesome monsters like the Fellers, or even small poisonous insects.
As such he walked in front of the group, his Chi Sense was tied more to his Spiritual Essence so it wasn't affected by the seal, meaning he could still see in a five meter radius around him, and there was nowhere in the cave that was 10 meters wide, meaning he could scan every little corner and not miss anything.
Fortunately, there wasn't anything dangerous in this cave, there were insects obviously, but their Chi was so weak they couldn't possibly endanger anyone, and they were scared of them anyway.
On the other hand, the dwarves were quite disappointed as until now they only found bones stuck in piles of waste, and none of them wanted to dig any deeper in those piles to see if they were missing a treasure.
Fortunately, as they reached the end of the cave, not only was there no additional Troll, they finally found the treasure they had been seeking. Gandalf's conjured light reflected upon the gold coins and precious gems.
The dwarves opened chests after chests, laughing at the gold. While no one was looking, Edward also sneaked a treasure chest in his Spatial Bracelet, and as he did he felt happy he had overcome the Third Chakra.
Until now he had been keeping the Ebony Sword in his back because of his Spatial Bracelet's nature of keeping the objects' weight in it. Before it didn't matter to him because he was very strong, but now that he was returned to an ordinary human, or almost, having the weight of the bracelet all day long would hurt.
Fortunately, he didn't have anything heavy other than the sword, so after strapping it on his back, he was fine. And now that he put the treasure chest, he realized he had underestimated it's weight, and had he not become stronger it would truly have become a burden to him, to carry it all day long.
Having secured some currency that could be used in any world, Edward looked at Gandalf, and saw him and Thorin with a couple of swords in their hands.
He approached them and heard Gandalf say, "Those were forged in Gondolin, by the High Elves of the First Age…"
Thorin looked disappointed and ready to throw it away, so Gandalf warned, "You could not wish for a finer blade."
While Thorin inspected his sword and Gandalf strapped one to his hip, Edward saw an additional weapon neither of them touched. Curious, he grabbed the only visible part, and pulled.
A few things stacked onto it fell to the ground, and the weapon finally revealed itself, after years of hiding.
It wasn't a sword, like Edward expected, but a spear. It was covered in dust and cobwebs, so Edward used a low level spell he had learned thanks to his conversations with Gandalf.
A faint vibration spread to the spear, shaking off all the dust off the spear, before the spider webs all ignited, revealing the spear in all it's glory.
It had a long black shaft, so long it reached his neck with it's butt on the ground, and golden Elvish inscriptions decorated the end of the shaft, extending to the beginning of the blade.
The head formed a sharp contrast with the pitch black shaft as the blade was off a snow white colour, seemingly ignoring the passage of time as Edward felt a chill move through his hand and spread through his body.
The snow white blade was quite long itself, much longer than the usual spear, and with the shaft the entire spear was even taller than Edward, maybe reaching two and a half meters in length.
Although he already had the Ebony Blade, Edward thought this was a beautiful weapon, and it wouldn't harm him to have a spare weapon, although that probably wouldn't ever be needed since he could call back the Ebony Blade…
Well, it would be a nice souvenir of this world for when he came back.
Edward stored the spear in his Spatial Bracelet, which shocked Gandalf as he saw the spear disappear out of thin air. The dwarves, who knew Edward could use magic, didn't think much of it and only took it to be magic, for them magic was magic, and the only indicator of a magic's difficulty was how much damage it could do on the battlefield.
Gandalf was different though, and although his gaze had lasted for a few seconds on the spear and he looked ready to say something, his intention changed as he asked, "How did you do that?"
Edward smiled and pointed at his bracelet before saying, "This is what I call a Space Bracelet, made by a friend of mine. It has a sealed space enchanted on it, which allows me to store things. However, their weight do not disappear."
Gandalf's eyes were blocked onto the bracelet, and after a couple of seconds he asked with a raised eyebrow, "Would you have another to sell?"
This made Edward chuckled, of course he would be interested, not only was it very useful, it was also a whole new aspect of magic, "While I don't have another, I am confidant I can make another. Do you have a bracelet I could use? Possibly made of a material sensitive to magic, like silver and gold."
Gandalf shook his head, and said, "I don't, but I could find one in Rivendell… But Lord Elrond and Lady Galadriel may be interested in such an artefact too…"
Edward grinned, "It's fine, it won't take me long to make them, and since we will be staying in their home and asking for their service, I don't mind gifting those to them. You also have helped me a lot with my magic in this past month, so take it as a gift too."
Gandalf smiled and praised, "Thank you, that is very generous of you. Your home seems to be a wonderful place."
Edward shrugged and replied, "It is, but it has it's fair share of problems." He didn't go any further than that, and Gandalf didn't ask.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone