Chapter 11: The Spoils

The moment the Mysterious Merchant finished speaking, Lin Ye’s smile vanished.

“That’s not acceptable!”

He clapped a hand over the three A-rank contained artifacts in his pocket and grew wary, as though the merchant might leap across the table and force a return at any moment.

“Old Wang, people need to follow rules, and evil gods even more so. No backing out of a transaction, no returns—those are your own rules. I’ve cooperated enthusiastically since I came in. You wanted to take my lifespan, I let you; you wanted my luck, I let you. I didn’t even blink.”

The more he spoke, the more justified he sounded. He even dragged his chair half a step backward. “Now you can’t take anything. That’s a problem with your ability; you can’t blame the customer. I didn’t steal them. You put all three on the table yourself, and you agreed to the trade.”

“You just said all transactions were fair, and now you want to back out because you’re losing money. Isn’t that damaging your own reputation?”

Standing behind him, Shen Qingyue listened with mixed feelings.

The merchant had indeed brought out the three artifacts himself, but Lin Ye had pocketed them before the introduction was over. Saying he hadn’t grabbed them was less than entirely objective.

The merchant said nothing.

Seeing his silence, Lin Ye covered his pockets even more securely with both hands. “Anyway, once the goods are in my pocket, they’re mine. If you really think you’re losing out, look for the cause elsewhere and improve your professional skills. A return is out of the question. At most, next time I come to support your business, I’ll bargain a little less.”

The hall fell quiet again.

The Mysterious Merchant sat at the far end of the table without answering for a long time, the darkness beneath his robe seeming to deepen.

Lin Ye didn’t yield an inch.

One hand pressed against his pocket while the other quietly found the chair’s armrest, ready to flee with the goods at any moment.

Shen Qingyue suspected that if the merchant so much as moved a finger, Lin Ye would flip the table at him first.

At length, the merchant sighed again.

He had sighed more times today than in all the long years before it combined.

“There is some truth to what you say,” he said slowly. “The transaction has begun, and the goods have been delivered. My inability to collect the price is indeed my problem.”

Lin Ye nodded at once. “See? We’ve finally reached an agreement. Old Wang’s still a good fellow when he admits his mistakes.”

“But a transaction cannot have no price.” The merchant ignored the nickname. “The debt will remain outstanding for now. You owe me a favor. One day, I may ask you to do something for me.”

Lin Ye stared.

He looked at the merchant as though seeing him for the first time. “You offer credit here?”

“This once only.”

“Then I should borrow more!” Lin Ye instantly brightened, pointing at the goods behind him. “Either way I owe you a favor, whether it’s for one thing or ten. Bring out a few S-rank items, Old Wang. Let’s use up the credit all at once, so I don’t have to make another trip.”

“No.”

The refusal was clean and decisive, leaving no room for negotiation.

“Don’t be so rigid. Favors don’t have a fixed price. What if the thing you ask me to do turns out to be extremely troublesome? Wouldn’t I lose out if I only took three A-rank items?”

“I will give you nothing more.”

“One extra would do.”

“No.”

“How about a freebie?”

“None.”

Lin Ye pursed his lips, plainly disappointed with the merchant’s customer service. But when he looked at the three artifacts in his system inventory, the corners of his mouth rose despite himself.

Three A-rank contained artifacts, and all he owed was a favor he might not have to repay for who knew how long.

By any measure, it was a good deal.

The merchant gave him no further opportunity to bargain.

He took out the materials needed for Shen Qingyue’s Sequence 9 advancement on the Calamity pathway and prepared them at the table. Liquids of different colors merged in a clear vessel, finally becoming a small vial of pure white potion, fine gray lines occasionally appearing on its surface.

When it was handed to Shen Qingyue, she accepted it with both hands, her fingertips trembling.

Only after Lin Ye confirmed there was nothing wrong with it did he reluctantly rise from his chair.

He kept looking back, his gaze sweeping over the shrouded goods behind the merchant as though he were being dragged from a treasure vault.

At the door he stopped. “Oh, Old Wang, how do I find you next time if I want to come myself? I can’t always wait for you to feel like opening a door in front of me at random, can I?”

To his surprise, the merchant didn’t refuse.

An old-fashioned black key flew from his sleeve and landed securely in Lin Ye’s hand.

“Insert it into any door. When opened, the door will lead here.”

Lin Ye’s eyes lit up. He promptly put the key away. “That convenient? You should’ve brought it out earlier. I’ll visit often when I have time and support your business.”

The merchant didn’t answer.

He merely lifted a hand, and the distant shop door opened by itself.

Lin Ye led Shen Qingyue through it. The heavy door slowly closed behind them, and their footsteps faded from the hall.

The Mysterious Merchant sat alone behind the long table, gazing intently in the direction they’d gone. After a long while, an extremely soft laugh emerged from beneath his hood.

“Interesting.”

…

Lin Ye crossed the threshold, and the dim, empty hall vanished before his eyes.

The two were back in the same narrow alley, even the rotting wooden crates piled in the corner unchanged.

Shen Qingyue immediately looked back.

The wooden door had vanished. Only a mottled wall remained, blending seamlessly into the surrounding buildings, with no sign that a Mysterious Shop had ever been there.

She didn’t pause to look further. She hurriedly took the vial of white potion from inside her clothes. The narrow glass bottle trembled in her palm, yet the liquid inside didn’t ripple at all.

“It’s real.”

Her voice shook as she repeated, “It’s really real.”

At Skyvault Academy, countless students had to complete numerous courses, assessments, and dangerous missions to obtain a method of advancement to Sequence 9. Even after finally accumulating enough credits, all they received was the method.

They still had to find the potion materials themselves.

Some ingredients could only be obtained from corrupted zones or aberrant creatures, and every attempt meant the possibility of injury, corruption, or death.

Many people spent years unable to gather the materials after obtaining a method, forced to watch others become supernaturals ahead of them.

Yet she’d spent only a short time in the Mysterious Shop and obtained not only the complete Calamity advancement method, but the prepared potion itself.

What everyone dreamed of lay quietly in her palm.

She trembled with excitement, her cheeks flushed by the strength of her feelings. She held the vial tightly, afraid everything would vanish like a dream if she loosened her grip.

Watching her, Lin Ye was in a good mood too.

“Come with me.”

He took her wrist and hurried out of the alley.

Still absorbed in the excitement of receiving the potion, she couldn’t keep up. Lin Ye glanced back, then simply bent down and picked her up.

“Young Master Lin!”

She cried out and instinctively wrapped both arms around his neck, then hurriedly freed one hand to guard the potion bottle against her chest.

“You’re too slow.” He didn’t slow down in the slightest. “At that pace, we wouldn’t find a suitable place by nightfall.”

“You could at least have told me first.”

“It’s not too late to tell you now. Hold on tight.”

With that, Lin Ye rushed out of the town. Dilapidated buildings streamed past. Shen Qingyue could only cling to the potion and bury her face against his shoulder.

He didn’t stop until they’d reached the depths of a forest far from White Stone Town, where he put her down again.

She smoothed her windblown hair and checked that the vial was intact before the flush in her cheeks faded a little.

She looked around.

Tall trees blocked most of the light. There was no road nearby and no sign of the other members of the Bureau’s investigation team. In the quiet forest, only the faint rustling of branches and leaves could be heard.

After a moment’s hesitation, she asked softly, “Young Master Lin, why did you bring me here?”

“Neigh!”

A towering figure appeared the next moment.

It was a heavily armored knight riding a black warhorse.

Both knight and horse were far larger than normal.

The horse stood more than two people high, its legs covered in thick black armor plates. Each hoof left a scorched mark on the ground. Black flames poured from the gaps in its armor without igniting the surrounding vegetation, making the air cold and oppressive instead.

The knight was enclosed head to toe in black armor. Two points of dark red fire burned through the slits in its helmet, and a black greatsword nearly two meters long was slung diagonally across its back.

As it appeared, an invisible pressure seemed to settle over the entire forest.

Shen Qingyue went pale and instinctively retreated to Lin Ye’s side.

His face, however, lit with delight.

This was the first of the three A-rank contained artifacts.

The Black Knight.

Information about it surfaced in his mind.

The Black Knight had been made from the corpse of a Sequence 4 powerhouse. Its original pathway could no longer be determined, but it could still consistently display Sequence 5 combat strength.

It was controlled entirely by its holder’s thoughts. They shared vision, and it could act independently, like an avatar of its user.

Its side effect was equally clear.

Whenever it was used, the black flames on the knight simultaneously burned its holder’s soul. The longer it was controlled, the more intense the pain became. An ordinary person might even suffer a mental collapse within minutes.

After reading the description, Lin Ye opened the system panel with practiced ease and found the pain adjustment in the settings.

【Current pain feedback: 100%.】

He dragged the slider.

【Current pain feedback: 0%.】

He closed the panel, satisfied. “Side effect solved.”

At a change in his thoughts, the Black Knight and its horse instantly broke apart into black flames that flew toward his arm and condensed into a knight tattoo.

The next moment, the tattoo burned again.

Heavy black armor spread rapidly along his arm and covered his body in moments. A black sword formed across his back, the helmet’s visor slowly closed, and two dark red lights appeared in its eye slits.

Now Lin Ye was almost indistinguishable from the Black Knight.

He flexed his armored hand, feeling the increase in power from the artifact. Acting independently, the Black Knight could consistently display only Sequence 5 strength. But once worn by him, it could again approach the Sequence 4 power the person whose corpse became the Black Knight had possessed in life.

In a sense, it was almost as if the Sequence 4 powerhouse had been resurrected.

For Lin Ye, however, that power would restrict what he could do himself.

It was clearly more useful as an independently acting avatar that shared his vision than as armor.

He dissolved the visor and turned to Shen Qingyue.

She was staring at him without moving, having temporarily forgotten even to check the potion in her hands.

The figure enclosed in black armor was tall and severe, black flames drifting slowly around him. He was entirely different from the lazy, easygoing Upper City young master in her memory.

Only when Lin Ye waved a hand before her eyes did she snap out of it, her cheeks quickly reddening.

He didn’t tease her. At a thought, the armor turned back into flames and withdrew into the tattoo on his arm.

The other two A-rank contained artifacts had much simpler functions.

One could purify most corruption and temporarily suppress higher-level erosion. The other was specifically for sealing: aberrant creatures, spirits, or ordinary contained artifacts could all be forcibly confined for a time, provided their power didn’t exceed its limit.

One for purification, one for sealing, and the Black Knight, which could fight independently.

Lin Ye was quite satisfied with his haul.

He put the three artifacts away again, then seemed to remember something. His gaze fell on the white potion Shen Qingyue still held tightly.

Anticipation appeared on his face, and he lifted his chin toward it.

“Drink it.”

“From now on, you’re a supernatural too.”