Spending tens of thousands just to bring back a bracelet worth only a few hundred seemed crazy. Yet here she was, standing in a room full of emeralds—and the best piece turned out to be the bracelet on her wrist, the one that bound her storage space. Even the bracelet she had once picked up at a floating market, along with the ring she'd gotten from Roderick, looked like top-quality items compared to what filled this shop. But Natalie wasn't picky. As long as the jewels were real, her storage space would take them. If the quality wasn't good enough, then she would make up for it with quantity. And since the entire street was lined with jewelry stores, she had plenty to work with. She swept every emerald in the store into her storage space. Then she tested it and discovered something shocking. The distance she could access her storage had grown from just over three feet to nearly ten feet. Natalie's eyes lit up with excitement. One store's worth of emeralds had given her an extra 7 feet. With so many stores around, could she eventually reach out 300 feet? The thought made her pulse quicken with excitement. She was driven to move to the next store. Before leaving, she gathered up the rest of the jewelry in the shop—gold, silver, pearls, whatever she could find. After all, she was already here, so why not take it all? Still, she couldn't help wishing gold had the same power to upgrade her storage space. That would've been perfect. She already had drawers full of gold bars she had taken from the big boss's secret vault. If only those counted! The second store she raided was much the same as the first in both quality and quantity. She cleaned it out completely, then tested her ability again. This time, the upgrade was smaller—just about five feet. "Hmm ... was this batch lower quality than the last one?" she wondered aloud. Determined to check, she moved on to a third shop. Again, she filled her storage space with emeralds and tested it out. This time, the increase in height was only about four feet. Natalie frowned. "That doesn't add up." Natalie had checked carefully before clearing out the third shop. The emeralds there were almost the same quality as the first store, and they even had an entire extra display case of gems. But when she fed it to the storage space, it didn't grow nearly as much as it had with the first batch.Puzzled, she kept going through several more stores. That's when she realized something strange—the more emeralds she collected, the slower her upgrades became. To confirm, she compared two high-quality bracelets. She placed one in her storage space, then another right after. The first boosted her range more, while the second gave her barely anything. It hit her all at once: the more she collected, the harder it became to level up. Back when she had first taken Roderick's ring, her range had jumped a full four inches. But now, with one of the same quality, it only grew by barely over an inch. Natalie thought it through and decided it made sense. It was just like when she used to play video games. At the start, you could level up seven or eight times in a single day. But later, gaining just one level might take weeks of nonstop grinding. Sometimes a boss fight would hold you back for over a year, just one step short of maxing out.With that in mind, Natalie comforted herself. "So what if it's slower? I'll just win with quantity. Collect everything!" She pushed on from store to store, no longer stopping to test after each haul. She just kept sweeping everything into her storage space. Nothing was left behind. Not just emeralds, but diamonds, gold, platinum, silver, pearls, onyx, and every gemstone she laid her eyes on—all of it became hers. When she had finally cleared out the last shop, she tested her storage space again. Now she could blink in and out of her storage space from nearly 100 feet away. It wasn't quite the 300 feet she had hoped for, but 100 feet was more than enough to take out anyone within that range in an instant. And if someone was farther than that? She smirked. I'll just do this a few more times. Popping in and out like some ghost—scaring them to death before they even know what hit them. After three long hours of work, Natalie finally returned to her car. She crunched on a few crackers to recharge, then turned the key and headed to her next target. Northlorn had about a hundred major malls, and roughly 60 of them carried jewelry counters. Her plan was to comb through them one by one, guided by her map. The armored SUV ate up the distance quickly, and soon she rolled into the next destination. Unlike the quiet jewelry street, the mall was buzzing. There was still plenty of stock here—most of it ruined by floodwater—but that didn't stop scavengers from picking through. Anything sealed or halfway salvageable was taken.Even ruined rice, soggy grain, and bottled drinks turned cloudy with dirty water were in demand. Each type of item was split by floor. Most scavengers flocked to the basement supermarket. But Natalie's goal lay on the first floor, where the jewelry counters were. The first floor was almost silent. It only held jewelry and cosmetic counters, no food. The only people passing through were those on their way to the upper levels. To be safe, Natalie pulled on a mask and a hat. If anyone happened to glance her way, they'd never recognize her. She glanced around. The floor was empty. Quiet. Safe. Time to work. But this time she didn't dare flaunt her storage space as openly as before. One careless move could reveal her secret, and if that happened, things could get messy fast.