When The System Spoils You For No Reason-Chapter 34 - Thirty Four

’So what does this great Expanse give out to its great adventurers?’

{Patience, young padawan.}

"What ya thinking about?"

Kai nudged Zeke, his voice cutting through the cave’s damp silence.

"The loot." Zeke’s gaze stayed fixed ahead, where faint magical energies pulsed in the dark. "About to find out if this trip was worth it."

"Low dopamine?" The teasing edge in Kai’s voice dropped just slightly—genuine concern bleeding through.

"Heh. Focus on the loot." Zeke pointed ahead. They’d reached the pile.

{Classic fool.}

’It’s just low dopamine. Why make a big deal out of it?’

{You should try accepting care without deflecting it into a joke.}

{When your dopamine level drops, you carry this terrible aura. It affects the people who care about you. You looked like someone who had lost the world.}

{How do you crash after just a few seconds of running around like that?}

’Maybe because I was running on the last embers. A little silence, and it snuffed out.’

{Take the next monster for yourself. Physical activity raises dopamine.}

’Fuck that. The One Piece is right in front of me.’

{...Sigh.}

---

The cavern opened around them, the loot glittering in clusters against the stone floor—glowing vials, dried herbs, a few artifacts catching the ambient light.

"So. Anybody know what we’re looking at?" Zeke gestured at the spread.

"Stat potions, definitely." Aaron pointed to a set of vials that shimmered with contained light, colors shifting like oil on water.

"What rank?" Kai leaned closer, squinting at the liquids.

"How would I know," Aaron said flatly, his deep voice rolling off the cavern walls.

While they bickered, Jude shot Zeke a look—narrow-eyed, knowing, saying nothing.

"Alright, let me see it."

’Observation works here, yeah?’

{Of course.}

’Okie.’

He smiled, made an okay sign with his fingers, and held it up to his eye like he was peering through a telescope.

"Spirit of light, grant me your sight!"

"Kya~"

"..."

The trio scattered backwards in a tight cluster, faces cycling through horror and secondhand embarrassment in real time.

Zeke heard the movement and turned around, genuinely puzzled.

"Hehe."

The laugh bounced off the crystalline walls.

"Seven stat potions total. Three C rank, three B rank, one D rank."

---

STATUS WINDOW

Item: Stat Potion — Rank D

Type: Consumable

Effect: Grants permanent stat points (100–199)

Allocation: User’s choice upon consumption

---

STATUS WINDOW

Item: Stat Potion — Rank C

Type: Consumable

Effect: Grants permanent stat points (200–349)

Allocation: User’s choice upon consumption

---

STATUS WINDOW

Item: Stat Potion — Rank B

Type: Consumable

Effect: Grants permanent stat points (350–549)

Allocation: User’s choice upon consumption

---

{A B rank potion rolls anywhere in the 350–549 range. Pure luck, once you drink it.}

’So the outcome’s always somewhere within the rank’s ceiling and floor.’

{Exactly. They’re cheat codes. Consume enough of them and you outpace years of training. Nobles absolutely gobble them up.}

’Are they available outside dungeons?’

{Depends on the dungeon type—but the working theory is they only appear in SS rank and above. Finding this many in one place? That’s rare. Places like this don’t come around often.}

’Must be why nobles can’t get enough of the Expanse.’

---

"The rest are herbs and—oh." Zeke moved in a blur and scooped up a small, glowing marble from the pile, holding it up to the light. It pulsed faintly in his palm. "A skill runestone. F rank, though."

He turned it over, frowning.

’ None of this fits the cave. The aesthetic is all wrong—this loot doesn’t belong here.’

"That monster must’ve been a hoarder." He set the marble down and straightened. "The treasure and its guardian don’t match what I was told about this place."

"Huh?"

"The loot’s trash."

"GASP—how dare you!" Kai pointed like he’d witnessed a crime.

"Bro. I get that you’re a walking cheat code, but any normal person would lose their mind over a stat potion. You said three of them were B rank!"

"There’s only three. And you all know how stat points work."

"Who doesn’t?" Jude crossed his arms.

"Aiya." Zeke shook his head and started walking toward the cave entrance, footsteps echoing on stone. "Doesn’t fit the lore."

"Hey—the potions! Let’s divvy them up!" Kai called after him.

"You three split the rest evenly. This one’s for my princess."

He’d already slipped back to the pile, palmed the D rank potion, and was now strolling toward the exit, turning the vial in his fingers and watching the liquid swirl.

"Doesn’t fit the lore," he said again, mostly to himself.

"One of each?" Kai asked, looking between the remaining potions.

"Obviously." Jude rolled his eyes, walked to the pile, took one B rank and one C rank, and kept moving toward the entrance—drinking the C rank as he went, not breaking stride.

"What?" Kai spread his arms wide. Aaron stared at him the way you stare at someone who just asked why fire is hot.

"Stop talking, dimwit." Aaron exhaled through his nose, collected his share, and downed them both in one smooth motion.

"Tch. Bullies." Kai swaggered up to the remaining potions with exaggerated dignity. "Can’t be left out." He gulped his down the same way, the liquid glowing briefly as it hit his throat.

---

Outside the cave, Makima was still leaning against the flat slab of crystal where they’d left her.

Zeke crossed to her and held out the small vial, the D rank potion catching the ambient light between his fingers.

"For you, darling. Consolation prize—your team lost."

"Have a look. It’s D rank."

Makima took it with a smile, her fingers brushing his as she turned it over in her palm, examining it with the quiet focus of someone who knew exactly what she was holding.

"Have you seen a stat potion before?" she asked.

"No. Why?"

"Just a guess." She glanced at him sidelong. "You don’t strike me as someone who reads dungeon literature. So how did you know the ranks? Did the trio tell you?"

"I feel deeply hurt." He pressed a hand to his chest, expression wounded.

She stared at him, one eyebrow arched, entirely unmoved.

"I’m just talented. Seems there was a secret you thought I wasn’t in on."

"You and your group don’t read," she said, a note of fond exasperation in her voice. "So—to let hunters identify stat potions without an appraiser, we’re shown reference charts. The rank correlates to the color of the liquid."

"Oh. Racist~"

She ignored that with the patience of someone who had known him long enough to pick her battles. "Tell your friends when they come out."

"Will do." He glanced around, then dropped onto a flat slab of stone nearby and laid back, folding his arms beneath his head, eyes drifting shut. "Let’s rest a while. I’m bored and tired."

"Wouldn’t it be easier to just go back to the camp cave?" Makima asked, watching him get comfortable with the air of someone who already knew the answer.

"Too lazy to move."

He adjusted once, settled, and was asleep within moments—breathing slow and even, like the dungeon around him was just background noise.

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