After a filling meal, Han Yu was about to clear the dishes when Quicksilver snatched the bowl from his hands first. "I'll wash the dishes. Go get some rest."
"I..."
Before Han Yu could get another word out, something flashed before his eyes. In the time it took him to blink, the dishes had vanished from the table, and the table itself had been wiped spotless.
"At that speed, you'd make a pretty good waiter."
Han Yu chuckled. "You two can sleep in the two rooms to the left on the second floor. Room and board are included, utilities are free, and you'll each get five thousand dollars a month. I'm in the first room to the left on the third floor. Come find me if you need anything. Is that acceptable?"
Quicksilver and Wanda froze for a long while. Then they stared intently at Han Yu, hoping to find some clue in his expression.
After five or six full minutes of being stared at, Han Yu started to feel uneasy. He couldn't help asking, "What, is it too little?"
Only then did Quicksilver hurriedly say, "No, no. I just wanted to see if you were a con artist... This is enough. We're very grateful!"
A salary of five thousand dollars, with room and board included and utilities free—if Han Yu hadn't also been a Metahuman, they would have thought it was a scam.
The two happily went to check out their rooms right away. Han Yu had also paid their wages in advance so they could buy some daily necessities.
He could have provided those things himself, but Han Yu was too lazy to go shopping. He gave them the money to go themselves, and they were happy to do it.
Late at night.
Han Yu returned to his room, let out a long breath, and said,
"System, settle the first mission."
"Ding! Mission completed: [Recruit two clerks from any world]!"
"Mission reward: 30 upgrade points!"
"You now have 50 upgrade points and have met the upgrade requirement. Upgrade?"
Listening to the voices sounding one after another in his head, Han Yu couldn't stop the grin spreading across his face.
Why had he offered Wanda and Quicksilver such good terms?
It was because of this mission!
Of the missions the system had given him, aside from the earlier one to "collect S-rank Ninjutsu in the Hokage world," only this one to "recruit two clerks" remained.
The mission seemed simple, but everyone who became a clerk at the grocery store was also bound to the system. They couldn't leave it unless the store manager agreed.
But even Han Yu, the system's holder, hadn't yet been promoted to store manager.
So the clerks Han Yu recruited had to have no attachments, no worldly affairs tying them down, and considerable fighting strength.
For Wanda and Quicksilver, aside from each other, they truly had no attachments in the world. Wanda also possessed incredibly powerful magic, making them well suited to Han Yu's requirements.
Although she hadn't awakened her true abilities yet, Han Yu would definitely help her later.
"Upgrade now!"
Han Yu's current rank in the tavern was "Senior Junior Clerk." With one upgrade, he could become a "Junior Senior Clerk." Every promotion to a major new realm would grant him a basic ability.
When he first became a "Junior Clerk," he had gained the Undying Divine Seal, a basic ability powerful enough to defy the heavens. He wondered what he would get the second time.
The tavern system responded at once. Half a second later, its emotionless voice sounded in Han Yu's mind.
"Upgrade successful. Current position: Junior Senior Clerk!"
"Upgrade reward obtained!"
Several strands of light gathered above Han Yu's palm, forming a purple conch shell slightly larger than his hand.
"Haha, I actually got an item? What is this... a Magic Conch Shell. A conch shell, not bad. Wait, this is... what?"
"A Magic Conch Shell...?"
Han Yu stared blankly at the purple shell in his hand. This wasn't some item that happened to share the name. It really was a perfectly ordinary conch shell, the only difference being that it was a little thicker.
"Magic my ass!"
Han Yu angrily hurled the Magic Conch Shell to the floor. Wasn't this the item from the SpongeBob cartoon? This could be an upgrade reward too?
The conch shell struck the floor with several crisp clacks, yet it didn't crack in the slightest.
Han Yu was close to tears. After all the effort he'd put into upgrading for so long, he'd ended up with this piece of "junk"?
In an online game, this was like a player using materials saved up over a long time to craft a weapon, only to turn what should have been an orange-tier weapon into the most basic white-tier one. Who wouldn't lose it?
"The Magic Conch Shell possesses knowledge of everything in past and present lives. The host need only inject his divine sense and ask the conch a question to receive the answer he wants. It can be used both in other worlds and in the main world!"
The system's voice suddenly sounded in Han Yu's mind. He snatched up the Magic Conch Shell as fast as lightning, picking it up before an ordinary person's eyelids had even fallen halfway through a blink.
"Why does this system like to pause halfway through what it's saying? You could've said that sooner. Good thing it didn't break."
Han Yu carefully brushed the dust off the Magic Conch Shell and turned it over, checking whether any part had been damaged.
"Knock, knock, knock."
A gentle knock sounded at the door. Han Yu put the conch back into the system for safekeeping and said,
"The door's unlocked. Come in!"
The door opened, and Wanda stood in the doorway.
She wore a white nightdress. After washing up, her hair fluttered slightly in the breeze, bringing with it a faint fragrance. The thin nightdress traced every curve of her striking figure.
"What is it? Do you need something?"
Han Yu was indeed dazzled by the sight of Wanda, but he had weathered great storms before. The amazement in his eyes flashed by, and his expression returned to normal.
"Ah, it's nothing. I just wanted to thank you, thank you for taking us in."
Wanda walked slowly into the room with her hands behind her back, her soft voice very pleasant to hear.
Catching the fragrance drifting toward him, Han Yu kept his expression unchanged and smiled. "How can you call it taking you in? You're working for me. You do the work, and I pay you and provide room and board. You should call me a competent boss instead."
Wanda walked up to Han Yu and looked at his young, handsome face. Even with the way she was dressed tonight, his gaze was as clear as it had been the moment they first met.
Wanda knew that all the talk about working for him was just a pretext. Although she didn't know what Han Yu's purpose really was, so far, she hadn't seen any malice from him.
He had simply helped them. She had never met a man like him before.
Seeing her staring at him without saying anything, even Han Yu couldn't help finding it a little strange, composed as he was. He cleared his throat and said, "By the way, you're not very skilled at using your abilities yet, are you? How about I help you develop them?"
"Develop them? How?"
Han Yu had changed the subject rather abruptly, and Wanda noticed. But she wasn't in a hurry for anything to happen between them right now, so she went along with the change of subject.
"Hehe, I just got a treasure. Let's see if it works!"
Han Yu took out the Magic Conch Shell he had received from his earlier upgrade and asked it in front of Wanda, "How can Wanda gain mastery over all her abilities?"
As soon as he finished speaking, the Magic Conch Shell suddenly burst into dazzling light. The light gathered continuously, forming lines of text in midair.
"In response to the question 'How can Wanda gain mastery over all her abilities?', the most useful current method is to create a Green Lantern Sub-Ring and establish a connection between it and Wanda's Chaos Magic, relying on the Green Lantern Ring's willpower to suppress the instability of Chaos Magic."
"Usage notice: The instability of Chaos Magic will first be borne by the holder of the Green Lantern Mother Ring. If the holder cannot withstand it, the backlash suffered by the holder will be transmitted back to the owner of the Sub-Ring in equal measure!"
Wanda came over to Han Yu's side and read the words displayed by the Magic Conch Shell with him. She sighed. "What's a Green Lantern Ring? I don't have anything like that. And what's Chaos Magic? Aren't my abilities just superpowers?"
Han Yu waved his hand, wiping away the words in midair. Rubbing his chin, he said, "Your superpower is called 'Chaos Magic.' It isn't an ordinary superpower, but an immensely powerful form of magic capable of affecting a universe, or even the Multiverse."
"My magic is really that powerful?"
Wanda found it a little hard to believe. She had heard of the concept of the Multiverse: aside from the universe they currently inhabited, there were other multiverses identical to this universe.
But all Wanda could do now was control objects to make them fly around or attack with energy. She really couldn't believe she had the power to affect an entire universe, much less the Multiverse.