I found Ribathrum staring intently into a magical crystal he held between his front paws. As far as I knew, those crystals allowed him to communicate with other sphinxes in the kingdom.

  Without any further introduction, I asked if he could give me any information about the magical artifacts listed by the Academy. Even the faintest clue might serve as a valuable starting point, something that could lead me to an important discovery.

  Lifting his gaze, the sphinx answered in a bored voice:

  “Yes, over the years I’ve heard a few things about the twelve sought-after artifacts. Unfortunately, I have no recent information about them.”

  Despite my disappointment, I hurried to correct him:

  “There are fifty-two magical artifacts on the list, Ribathrum, not just a dozen. Here’s the scroll, if you don’t believe me.”

  The sphinx narrowed his eyes as he skimmed quickly through the scroll I handed him.

  “That many? No, that can’t be right.” His voice suddenly took on an authoritative tone. “Let me tell you something for certain: many of the items on this list are myths. They never existed. The problem is that no one remembers anymore which ones are real and which ones are invented. If you want an expert’s opinion, I’d say only about a quarter of them have any basis in reality. The rest are fantasies.”

  “Are you sure, Ribathrum?”

  “How else? If they existed, I would certainly have heard of them.”

  “Still,” I insisted, “isn’t it a bit strange to send people off to look for things that are pure fiction?”

  The sphinx set the crystal aside and smiled at me, showing his sharp fangs.

  “I enjoy talking to you. Sometimes you ask very interesting questions. It’s all Academy politics,” he added in a low voice.

  He took a sip of some magical drink from a goblet and went on:

  “The Academy, as I’m sure you know, doesn’t have many sources of income. To enroll in the artifact-searching competition, you must pay a fee of five hundred sesterces to the faculty dean. You won’t see that money again unless you manage to bring back an artifact — which is almost impossible. If I recall correctly, only one artifact has been found in the last fifty years.”

  “Sounds quite profitable,” I said.

  “And that’s not all,” the sphinx continued. “There’s an entire industry built around artifact hunting. Every year, hundreds of maps are sold with the supposed locations of various treasures. Also, magical amulets and talismans that increase your chances of locating lost artifacts are in high demand.”

  He looked off into the distance, as if recalling certain memories.

  “For a while, I sold trinkets like that too, but usury is far more profitable. I’ve stopped selling objects now, since I don’t like wasting my time on low-yield activities.”

  I noted to myself that no matter how a conversation with the sphinx began, it always somehow returned to his favorite subject: money.

  “How we could distinguish which artifacts are real and which are invented?”

  “Start with the ones that have royal rewards attached,” he replied. “Those definitely existed, and they’re historically documented. But be careful: even if they existed long ago, there’s no guarantee they’ve survived to the present day.”

  I thanked the sphinx for the information and stepped out of the library. Elesya and I began walking slowly through the vast underground hall. It suited me perfectly to talk here, since the other students rarely came down this far. The library was visited only when they needed to borrow money or pay their loan installments.

  “What do you think about the list, Elesya?”

  As usual, when asked for her opinion, Elesya replied cautiously.

  “I’m not sure what to say. Ribathrum might be right, and many of these objects could be myths. That would explain why students have failed to find any artifact so far.”

  “However, not everything on the list is fiction. Let’s think logically. The more spectacular the properties of an object, the more likely it is to be a myth. How about we apply this principle and cross off anything that sounds exaggerated, even for a magical item. Read me one of the entries.”

  “The Torch of Truth,” she read. “It’s said that the light of this torch reveals all hidden things in a room—whether spells, magical objects, secret doors, or treasures.”

  “Good,” I exclaimed. “The torch’s effect is very similar to a spell I know, one we’ll be using soon. The description sounds perfectly plausible. What’s next?”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “The Sack of Wealth. A money pouch from which you can draw gold and silver coins, yet it always remains full,” Elesya continued in an uncertain voice.

  “Cross it off. That can’t exist. Although, come to think of it, the banks in my world do exactly that: they create money out of nothing.”

  With a spark of surprise in her eyes, Elesya looked up from the scroll.

  “Are you sure? How can they create money out of nothing? Except for a few ancient alchemists, no mage can perform such magic.”

  “That magic is called inflation. Here it isn’t possible, since you still use precious metals. In the Opposite World, most money consists of printed paper. Do you see now how easy it is to create?”

  Elesya looked at me doubtfully.

  “Sam, I think I understand what you’re saying. When your rulers need to, they tell the banks to print that paper money so they can pay their debts. Still, I don’t think the method can work forever. It’s like adding water to wine: at first, no one notices, but the more you add, the less wine is left. Eventually, no matter how much you claim it’s wine, everyone will see that only water remains.”

  I smiled at the comparison of water and wine. Even though she couldn’t possibly know how the economy worked in my world, Elesya had grasped perfectly how inflation functioned.

  “You guessed right; things can’t go on like that forever. Every now and then the economy stumbles, and sometimes it even collapses. But those who rule our countries have found ways to survive and still make the common people pay their debts. Anyway, let’s get back to our artifacts.”

  Elesya unrolled another section of parchment and continued reading by the dim light in the hall:

  “The Cream of Youth. A magic cream that can rejuvenate skin touched by old age, perfectly removing wrinkles, spots, and creases. A single application makes the skin regain its glow and look like that of a twenty-five-year-old. What’s wrong, don’t you think such a magical cream is possible?”

  Elesya had noticed that I was barely holding back my laughter.

  “Of course it’s possible. It’s actually simple to make. All you need is an ordinary cream, but it must meet two conditions. First, it has to contain a few rare and hard-to-find ingredients: powdered pearls, donkey milk, fine oils, coffee, algae extract, or even gold dust. The more exotic the ingredients, the better. The second condition is that the cream must be expensive and beautifully packaged in a container that catches the eye. You absolutely need golden letters for the product name, otherwise it won’t work. After a woman uses such a cream, she’ll look exactly the same as before but swear it made her skin ten years younger.”

  Elesya gave me a look that told me she felt extremely uncomfortable. Understandably so—though she wasn’t more than twenty, she herself used such overpriced, useless creams.

  “Sam, you are astonishingly skeptical, but perhaps you're right about the cream. Many women in our world fool themselves when they spend money on such beauty products. I’ll cross it off the list.”

  Elesya stopped near a glowing crystal in the hall so she could see the small print on the scroll better.

  “The Cup of Life,” she went on. “The water kept in this cup becomes magical and grants immortality to whoever drinks it.”

  “Unrealistic,” I said. “With all your magic, I haven’t heard of anyone being immortal around here. And even if such an artifact had once existed, it’s unlikely it survived to the present day. Please continue.”

  “The Scepter of Power,” Elesya read. “I assure you the artifact truly existed during the Chaotian Empire, but it was stolen shortly before the empire collapsed, about twelve centuries ago. It’s mentioned in all chronicles of the time.”

  “And what did the scepter do, if you’d be so kind as to inform me?”

  “It’s said that whoever held the scepter—the emperor, of course—could control crowds. It was enough for the emperor to give a speech while holding the Scepter of Power, and people would follow him blindly, whether it was to go to war or build a gigantic palace.”

  “Well, that makes me skeptical about the item’s qualities,” I commented sarcastically. “I agree with you that it physically existed, but that doesn’t necessarily prove it had magical properties. People were forced to follow the emperor anyway, otherwise they could contract severe illnesses. For instance, they could end up without a head. The scepter’s ‘power’ might just be a story meant to create a legendary aura around the rulers. You know, the kind of stories that impress simple folk.”

  Elesya didn’t like being contradicted.

  “No, you’re wrong,” she replied indignantly. “The scepter’s power is real. The emperor even persuaded enemy soldiers to join him. Before the Battle of Thranexenes, he gave a speech to the Dariusian army and convinced them to surrender. The enemy soldiers immediately threw down their weapons and hailed Etrius as their new emperor.”

  “And how do you know so much about the Scepter?”

  “I researched it when I wrote an essay about the Empire for school.”

  “Tell me, please, when did the Scepter disappear, and how?”

  “The exact date hasn’t survived, but it’s known that it vanished around the time of the Nemean invasion, when Heropolis, the imperial capital, fell. Agrippa claims, without evidence, that the scepter was stolen before the invasion by one of the leaders of a rebellion that took place on the same day. But most historians agree that it was taken by the Nemeans along with other treasures looted from the city. On their return journey, a violent storm sank part of the Nemean fleet. That means the scepter now lies at the bottom of the sea, together with the other treasures taken as spoils.”

  “And it hasn’t resurfaced since the invasion?”

  “No,” Elesya answered. “Or at least no documents mention it. After the fall of Heropolis, there followed a short two-year period in which the former empire became a republic. It was a time marked by many bloody internal conflicts and political instability. After that, many of the former imperial provinces began declaring independence one by one, becoming kingdoms. The Republic quickly fragmented and ceased to exist. Our kingdom was, in those days, merely a province of the Chaotian Empire.”

  “And during the republic, nobody mentioned the scepter?”

  “Nothing at all. Some historians even speculated that the republicans destroyed the scepter because it represented an instrument of imperial tyranny. However, there isn’t a shred of evidence to support that idea. I believe that if the Republic had intended to destroy the scepter, they would have done it publicly so the people could witness the disappearance of a symbol of the former empire.”