Evil Dragon Bar

Following The Fool's instructions, she had to conduct the Ritual Magic experiment by Wednesday at the latest. Although the materials required for the ritual he had taught her were not particularly valuable, there were quite a few kinds. Angel sorted through the stock in her study's basement and found that she would have to make another trip to the Underground Market to get everything she needed.

Tingen's largest Underground Trading Market was located in the Docklands' Evil Dragon Bar.

Before joining the Nighthawks, Angel had assumed this market was merely a secret location passed around among occult enthusiasts and certain wild Beyonders. But after learning of the place from Old Neil, Leonard, Xijia, and others, she realized that Evil Dragon Bar had long since been exposed to the Official Extraordinary.

Rather, places like Evil Dragon Bar operated with the tacit approval of the churches' Beyonder forces, making it easier to keep the trade in dangerous items and Beyonder Ingredients under control instead of allowing it to develop unchecked.

Once she understood that, Angel no longer felt any psychological burden about visiting the Underground Market. Even a veteran Nighthawk like Old Neil often went to Evil Dragon Bar to buy materials, so what could be wrong with her preparing to practice Ritual Magic?

After nightfall, she hired a two-wheeled carriage and headed straight for the Docklands.

Considering that the shopping would take some time, Angel did not have the carriage wait for her. She paid the fare and sent the driver away.

She then skillfully bypassed the guards at the entrance, the seemingly endless boxing matches, and the billiards players who appeared to be playing pool but were actually guarding the hidden door. Following the long concealed passageway, she entered the Underground Trading Market.

The first time Angel had come to Evil Dragon Bar, she had been in a hurry, with the clear purpose of making special bullets to deal with Mrs. Sharon. This time, her mindset and purpose were different. She was able to stroll leisurely through the Underground Trading Market as though she were browsing a supermarket, carefully selecting the materials needed for Ritual Magic while broadening her horizons.

The building housing the Underground Market was actually another structure behind Evil Dragon Bar. It looked as though it had been converted from a warehouse, with a ceiling over four meters high and an area of roughly five hundred square meters. The managers had divided it into rows of permanent stalls, with walkways in between. As a result, although the traders were crowded together, the place did not seem chaotic.

After visiting the stalls one by one, Angel quickly found something that interested her.

A messy-haired teenager sat on a small round stool, his head drooping as if he were sleepy. His stall displayed many small, exquisite Glass Bottles, while piles of cloth bags of varying sizes sat beside him. Several overturned bags revealed their contents, and Angel recognized Moon Flower among them.

"Are you selling essential oils made from various herbs?" She stepped closer and bent down to pick up a Glass Bottle. It was the size of her thumb, sealed with a metal stopper and filled with pale yellow oil.

The teenager raised his head and looked at Angel. He froze for a moment before answering, "That's right. You actually didn't mistake it for perfume. I've already sent away several customers who got it wrong."

"Isn't perfume also plant essential oil? It's just more fragrant than the oils you make." Angel pulled out the metal stopper, and a pungent scent wafted out. Mm, Golden Mint.

"Of course they're different! Perfume is just a cosmetic. Essential oils can be used as medicine, and they can also..." The teenager immediately flushed and protested anxiously, but stopped halfway through. After glancing around, he continued, "...Forget it, you wouldn't understand anyway. These essential oils are 5 Soule per bottle. If you buy more than three bottles, I'll give you a ten percent discount."

"So expensive?"

Angel raised an eyebrow. Given the production process, the price of raw materials, and the extraction equipment required, she did not truly think it was expensive. She was merely bargaining out of habit.

"My teacher set the price. He said we can't lower it even if they don't sell." The teenager put on a stern expression, as though he would rather die than haggle. But then he added in a low voice, "...If you buy more than three bottles, I can give you another five percent off?"

Figuring that no amount of further arguing would earn her a better discount, Angel nodded in agreement.

"Fine, we'll go with that price. I need Golden Mint, Moon Flower..." She rattled off the types of essential oil she needed. To avoid revealing the exact requirements of the Ritual Magic, she deliberately selected two additional kinds of oil.

To her surprise, the teenager's stall carried a very complete selection of essential oils. He skillfully picked out every kind she wanted, including the two extra oils, and placed them in an exquisite cloth bag.

"That comes to 1 pound, 9 Soule, and... 9 pence." The teenager quickly calculated the discounted price. He handed over the cloth bag with one hand and accepted the banknotes Angel paid with the other. After giving her 3 pence in change, he immediately turned to the owner of another stall behind him. "Hey, Old Man, I've got enough money now. I'll take all those herbs of yours."

The stall owner he called Old Man happily accepted the money and handed the teenager a large bag of unknown herbs.

So this was what they called making a profit off the difference...

Watching the money she had spent on a few bottles of essential oil pass through the teenager's hands and turn into herbs capable of producing at least several times as much oil, Angel had witnessed the enormous profits of underground trade.

Of course, she lacked professional extraction equipment. Even if she bought the herbs, she could only soak them in alcohol for slow extraction, which took a long time, was inefficient, and easily mixed in impurities. It was unsuitable for essential oils used in rituals, so she could only let the teenager earn the difference.

Angel hefted the cloth bag in her hand and did not dwell on it too much. If she could complete The Fool's task with only a few pounds, the price was not exorbitant.

She recalled the items needed for the Ritual Magic. An ordinary carving knife could substitute for a ritual dagger, as long as it could create a Wall of Spirituality. It would be best to buy the various meals on the day itself to ensure they did not spoil. That only left the Sandalwood Candle needed for the ritual.

After passing several more stalls selling materials and finished goods, Angel stopped before a middle-aged man who was pitching various talismans to other customers.

For Beyonders capable of making talismans and amulets themselves, such charms made by ordinary people based on mysticism riddled with loopholes were not worth spending money on. What caught her attention were the Sandalwood Candles displayed in the corner of the stall. They were more translucent and slimmer than ordinary candles made from animal fat, making them easy to distinguish at a glance.

"How much are those candles?" Angel asked only after the middle-aged man failed to make a sale and sat back down on his low stool.

"Hm? What?"

The man looked at Angel in confusion, then followed her gaze toward the candles.

"You want to buy candles? No, no, those aren't for sale. I need them to make talismans. Why don't you take a look at these amulets..."

He picked up the silver amulet he had failed to sell earlier, with its hollowed-out design and feather-shaped ornament, and held it out to Angel.

"5 Soule." Angel did not look at the amulet in his hand and simply named a price.

"This one costs 6 Soule. For 5 Soule, you can only buy the ones over there..." The man misunderstood her meaning and continued fiddling with the silver amulet.

"I mean the candles."

The middle-aged man froze. It took him quite a while to react. He looked at the amulet in his hand, then at the bundle of candles in the corner, hesitating for a moment.

"Fine, they're yours..."

With a sigh, the man agreed to the deal.

Ordinary candles generally cost half a penny. Even if Sandalwood Candles cost several times more, a bundle of ten would not cost 2 Soule. Angel had forcibly bought them at more than twice their value, truly breaking through the man's psychological limit. Dejected, he tossed aside the silver amulet, picked up the bundle of candles, and handed it to Angel.

"I didn't expect the first business I made today to be reselling candles." He accepted the 5-Soule banknote and mocked himself. "Looks like selling candles might be more profitable than making amulets."

Realizing that her eagerness to buy the candles had discouraged the stall owner, Angel gave a wry smile and comforted him. "Sorry, I just need these candles urgently. It isn't that the amulets you make aren't worth the price. These, um..."

She pressed her tongue against her back teeth and opened her Spirit Vision. Looking at the dim, lackluster amulets, she was wondering how to praise them against her conscience when she suddenly felt a disturbance in spirituality behind her. It was as though her intuition were tugging at her, warning her to be wary of that direction.

Ignoring the dejected middle-aged man, she turned around. By the wall two rows of stalls away sat a thin young man. He wore the linen shirt and blue-gray trousers commonly worn by Dockworkers. His wrinkled clothes seemed not to have been washed or changed in a long time. His lifeless eyes stared into the sky, while his lips moved as though muttering something.

The passersby who walked past him seemed Already Got Used To It, turning a blind eye to his strange behavior. They merely detoured slightly to avoid touching him.

"Who is that?" Angel pointed at him and asked the middle-aged man, who was wiping down his amulets.

"An orphan. No one knows his name. He's crazy, babbling nonsense every day and shouting at strangers. He often gets beaten when he runs into someone with a bad temper." The man glanced in the direction Angel indicated and answered casually, "If not for Mr. Svein, the manager here, having a bit of kindness, he'd have been thrown into the Tassok River long ago."

Angel reopened her Spirit Vision and carefully observed the crazed young man, but discovered nothing else.

Perhaps only a Medium or Diviner skilled in Spirit Vision could see something... She licked her teeth and shut off her Spirit Vision, no longer paying attention to the young man.

Having acquired the candles, Angel had essentially completed her main task. But since it was rare for her to visit the Underground Trading Market, she did not intend to return immediately. Instead, she continued browsing the various stalls, watching others haggle and argue, occasionally buying materials at reasonable prices.

She even ran into the round-faced, shy young man who had sat across from her on the Public Carriage earlier that day. He was bargaining over an ornate ritual knife with an intricate design. From the stall owner's shift from resistance to compliance, then repeated nodding, it seemed that the initiative in the negotiation lay with this young man, who looked barely of age.

Noticing Angel's gaze, the round-faced man turned toward her. He seemed to recognize her as well, smiled as he said a few words to the stall owner, then walked over with the knife in hand.

"Beautiful lady, we meet again."