Jake and Sarah just followed the two sisters for the next fifteen minutes, passing through the various Orange Cubes and identical corridors to finally arrive in front of their cabins. The two sisters' booths were next to each other and connected inside as if in a two-room apartment.
This made Jake realize that connecting booths to each other was not just limited to pet or slave owners. It was apparently possible to connect these cabins as long as you had the consent and the booth number of the people involved. Yerode and Lamine probably had their booths side by side for the same reasons.
Just thinking about those two scumbags and the female slave stuck with them made Jake's blood pressure go up a notch and he had to take a deep breath to finally relax and loosen his fists.
"Is everything all right? "Sarah noticed his change in expression instantly. Perhaps it was her feminine instinct.
" Well, it's all right. I was just thinking about my knees. " Jake smiled back and let out a half-truth. This revenge, he intended to exact it alone.
"Oh..."
Sarah didn't insist after she unconsciously glanced down at his perforated knees. They were in pretty bad shape. Without crutches, it was clear Jake couldn't walk.
Meanwhile, Enya, the older sister, had pressed her hand against the smooth carbon-grey wall bearing the symbol corresponding to her cabin number. The solid texture of the metal suddenly liquefied to form a vortex. Accustomed to the phenomenon, Enya entered her cabin without hesitation and the rest of the group followed in her footsteps.
Jake almost let go of his crutches when he discovered their "apartment". He, who had only taken a twenty square meter room with a toilet and a shower for 12 Aether points a day, entered a forty square meter room with a bed, table and chairs, and a partition separating the bathroom from the toilet. Esya's connected booth was exactly the same.
Jake could not help but facepalm at this spectacle. Even Sarah had her mouth open in the shape of an O, and was blinking repeatedly as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. She too as a young woman wanted to enjoy her comfort and loved spending, but there was a limit to stupidity.
Jake didn't know the exact price of the furniture, but the 40 square meters alone cost 8 Aether points a day. After accumulating 14,500 Aether points in one night, his view of the rent was no longer so pessimistic, but it was still a waste in his eyes if those points could be used to get stronger. Considering the recent rescue of the two princesses, they were far from invincible...
Separating the booth into different rooms did not cost anything, it was one of the free customization options. On the other hand, the shower and toilet added 10 Aether points for each additional day. As for the bed, the table and the furniture in general, it added about 10 points per piece of furniture as well.
Their daily rent in Aether was probably close to 60 points per day. Fortunately, they seemed to share the bathroom and the dining table, Esya's cabin being comparatively much more frugal. Still, it was a colossal sum of Aether to be spent every day in a context where the future was extremely uncertain.
"Girls... How the hell are you still alive? " Jake blurted out, unable to contain his disbelief.
Sarah, to his right, nodded her head approvingly showing that she was wondering the very same thing. Her own cabin, like Jake's, was only about twenty square meters with a simple shower and toilet in a corner.
On hearing his question, the two sisters didn't react immediately. Then, when they saw where Jake and Sarah were looking, they realized that the cabins they thought were too narrow and intended to enlarge were in fact a luxury that only they dared to afford.
Realizing that they had just proved that they were just two spoiled, pampered nobles unable to face real life, they turned as red as peonies.
"Whatever. "Jake chuckled awkwardly. He didn't mean to embarrass them, but it was essential that they realize how foolish they were. "I'd still advise investing a few Aether points in Intelligence if you can afford it. It might avoid such a situation, although I think it's more a matter of your ingrained habits and upbringing. "
It was indeed. As mages, their intelligence was above average, but their bad habits were tenacious. It was for this very reason that their performance during their Ordeal had been so poor.
Deprived of their comfort, they were not in their normal state. The Maslow's Pyramide was stuck on the first floor and they couldn't make the right decisions. This probably explained why their Ordeal was taking place in a Stone Age World with non-existent technology. In order to help them change, but it was obviously not enough.
"... We just, we just thought we'd go and hunt the Digestors to pay the rent. At the time it didn't seem so expensive... " Esya stuttered with a very small voice.
Enya preferred to keep silent and turn her back on them to do a bit of housework instead of making a fool of herself. It was perfectly useless, though. The cabin was clean and it was clear that the booths cleaned themselves automatically after they left. The air was so clean and the floor so sparkly that they could have had open-heart surgery there without having to disinfect anything.
That was Jake's plan, by the way. He had no intention of cutting open his chest, but breaking his knees again promised to be gory and bloody.
"Where are the crystals? "Jake finally changed the subject, getting the two princesses out of their predicament.
"Under the bed, I'll get them! "Esya jumped at the chance to make herself useful. Disappearing on all fours under the bed, her buttocks raised up, she reappeared a moment later with a full brown leather purse.
The purse seemed to weigh a good kilogram, and when the young woman undid the string holding it closed, shimmering reflections of different colors could be seen inside. Trusting Jake with the purse, he grabbed it with a simple "thank you", before sitting cross-legged in a corner to conduct his experiment.
The three young women watched him do so calmly without interrupting him, and when they saw a stream of red Aether gushing from Jake's body into one of the gems, they knew from Jake's relieved expression that his experiment was successful.
Jake then tested the different gems, which varied in size and type, and it turned out that for the same volume, these stones could contain more Aether than the identical Red Crystals provided by the Instructor.
There were no color restrictions either. An emerald could perfectly contain the Red Aether of Strength, just as a ruby could contain the Violet Aether of Extrasensory Perception.
He found, however, that the purity of the gemstone was important. Precious stones that were cloudy or had impurities inside could contain much less Aether than the others.
He concluded that the crystals provided by the Instructor were probably glass, or true crystal in the sense of the definition, namely glass to which lead oxide had been added to increase the transparency and refractive index. It could also have been zirconia or some other material.
In any case, it had to be available in abundance in the Mirror Universe and it was clear that gemstones were not an ideal choice, despite their ability to contain more Aether.
What the two sisters noticed most was that he didn't need to touch the gems to transfer his Aether into them. Aether filaments of different colors moved back and forth from his body to the gems and then from one gem to the next without Jake showing any signs of fatigue or exertion.
The two sisters had awakened their Seventh Stat, but other than allowing them to feel the Aether in their bodies it hadn't made much difference. They did not sense or see any elemental particles, and their mana had been exhausted for a long time. The Fireball spell they had bought had not made any difference.
"How do you do that? "Enya asked with sincere curiosity. If this would solve her problem, there was no reason to be shy.