CHAPTER 184: THE WEIGHT OF WORTHLESSNESS!

A stunned silence fell over the shabby, dust-filled barn.

The four senior students, the elite of Astralis Academy, stared at the single, dusty leaf held in Daniel’s hand.

To their eyes, it was still just a weed, unremarkable and worthless.

But the way Daniel held it, the quiet, confident certainty in his voice, sent a ripple of doubt through their profound disappointment.

"What are you talking about, Vance?" Selene snapped, her earlier frustration returning.

"It’s just a weed,dry, lifeless, and honestly a bit pathetic." Are you trying to be funny?

Because now is not the time for your freshman-level attempts at humor."

Daniel just smiled, a calm, almost pitying expression on his face. He didn’t say another word.

He simply activated a tiny, almost imperceptible spark of his S-Grade [Solar Flare Fist Art], channeling a minuscule amount of pure solar energy into the leaf.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the dusty green leaf began to glow.

A soft, vibrant emerald light, so pure and potent it seemed to push back the barn’s oppressive gloom, pulsed from the leaf.

A wave of rich, life-sustaining energy washed over them, so tangible that even Ayra, with her berserker’s senses, could feel the vitality seeping into her skin.

"By the sacred Stargates..." Amara breathed, her sky-blue eyes wide with disbelief as she stared at the glowing leaf.

As the Academy’s number one healer, her senses were keenly attuned to life energies.

"The purity of that vitality... the concentration... that’s not just an herb.

That’s a divine-grade medicinal ingredient!

A single leaf like that could be the core component of an S-grade regeneration elixir! It’s... it’s priceless!"

Gideon’s jaw dropped. He looked from the glowing leaf back to the scattered piles of weeds all around them, his simple, honest face a mask of dawning, horrified comprehension.

"You mean... all of this...?"

With a new, frantic energy, the team scrambled to examine the other weeds and straw they had so disdainfully dismissed just moments before.

They began to use their own identification skills, their Nexus Interfaces, their specialized senses.

And the results were staggering. The straw was indeed Celestial Weaver’s Silk.

The dust turned out to be crushed Moon-Moth wings, a rare alchemical ingredient.

The rough wooden planks of the walls were actually petrified Ironwood, a material renowned for its incredible durability.

They had been standing in a treasure trove of legendary, A-grade materials, and had been completely, utterly blind to it, their minds trapped by their own preconceived notions of what treasure should look like.

A wave of profound, humbling embarrassment washed over the four senior students.

They had mocked this place, mocked the old master who sent them here, and in doing so, had revealed their own ignorance.

Daniel just watched, a quiet satisfaction settling within him.

He now understood the first true test of the Silvershade Realm. It was a test of perception, of humility, of the ability to see the extraordinary hidden within the ordinary.

"Well," Nicklaus said finally, breaking the stunned silence, his voice laced with a newfound respect as he looked at Daniel.

"It seems we owe you an apology, Vance. Your senses are... sharper than ours. You saw what we were blind to. Lead the way. You clearly have a better feel for this place than we do."

The others murmured their agreement, their earlier arrogance replaced by a grudging admiration.

Daniel had proven his worth without throwing a single punch.

With a nod, Daniel began to lead them deeper into the strange, shabby-looking plane.

The barn opened up into a series of vast, interconnected halls, each one filled with a different kind of useless treasure.

They passed through a hall where the rocks on the floor were revealed to be uncut, high-grade energy crystals.

They walked through a swamp where the murky water was actually a pool of liquid origin power, so pure it could be directly absorbed to enhance one’s cultivation.

Each discovery was a fresh wave of shock and awe for the senior students.

They stepped into a wide square and froze at the sight before them.

It was a scene of such ludicrous, overwhelming opulence that it defied all logic.

Before them, stretching as far as the eye could see in the dim light, were mountains.

Literal mountains, each one dozens of meters high, composed entirely of glittering, shimmering wealth.

One mountain was made of pure gold coins, each one stamped with the emblem of forgotten interdimensional empires.

Another was a mountain of radiant silver bricks.

A third was a tumbling mass of precious gems, fist-sized diamonds, rubies burning with inner fire, and sapphires as deep and dark as the void between stars.

And scattered amongst it all were stacks of ancient, beautifully printed banknotes from a thousand different fallen civilizations, their value now purely historical, but immense nonetheless.

The immense scale of the wealth was overwhelming.

It was a treasure hoard that could buy and sell entire star systems.

Gideon, the giant tank, was the first to break.

A strange, glassy look entered his honest blue eyes. "So... much... shiny..." he whispered, his voice filled with a childlike wonder that was deeply unsettling.

Before anyone could stop him, he let out a great, joyous roar and, with the unrestrained abandon of a man who had found his personal heaven, he dove headfirst into the nearest mountain of gold coins.

He vanished into the lustrous pile with a loud, metallic splash, followed by the sound of gleeful, muffled laughter.

He began to swim through the coins like they were water, tossing handfuls into the air, rolling in the immense, useless wealth.

"Gideon!" Nicklaus yelled, his voice sharp with alarm.

"Get out of there! Remember the rules! You can’t take any of it with you! It’s worthless to us!"

But Gideon didn’t seem to hear him. He was completely, utterly captivated, lost in a golden fever dream.

He had found the ultimate treasure, and his mind, unable to process the fact that he couldn’t possess it, had simply... snapped.

Amara looked on, her face pale with concern.

"His obsession... it’s like a curse. The wealth itself is the trap."

Selene was silent, her usual cold arrogance giving way to a look of deep, almost philosophical shock.

The vast, futile treasure was a lesson more powerful than any she’d learned at the Academy.