Opening Day, Bankrupt on Day One

As for the Spirit Sword Technique...

Chen Xuan walked out of the Ability Store, picked up a fallen leaf from the ground, silently recited the incantation, and hurled it forcefully at a ginkgo tree not far away.

With a soft whoosh, the leaf actually stabbed into the trunk like a flying knife!

He walked over for a closer look and found that the leaf had pierced completely through the bark and sunk deep inside, leaving only a two-finger-wide gash on the surface.

That effect was far too astonishing...

Chen Xuan marveled inwardly. If that leaf struck a person, wouldn't it be fatal? Even if it missed a vital spot, it could still instantly rob its target of the ability to resist.

He knew that cultivators all had a few tricks up their sleeves, but the fact that even a White Grade cultivation technique could have such an effect was genuinely frightening.

Afterward, Chen Xuan tried a few other applications, such as attaching the spirit sword to his fingertips. It looked as though his fingernails had merely grown a little longer, yet it could easily cut through chopsticks and leave scratches on ceramic tiles.

It could probably even slice through someone's throat without anyone noticing.

Who would be suitable to sell this ability to?

"It looks like I'll have to be more careful when choosing my sales targets next time." He muttered to himself. If the Spirit Sword Technique fell into the hands of someone with evil intentions, the consequences would be unimaginable.

After testing the ability, Chen Xuan remembered his Performance Points.

The Shopkeeper's Rules had clearly stated that this reward could be redeemed immediately.

He returned to the counter, took out the Red Notebook, and flipped to the corresponding page. Sure enough, it clearly stated that Performance Points could be used to raise the shopkeeper's rating or exchanged for other rewards. However, whichever option he chose, he had to submit a report by email.

So the LV1 of a colored ability could be raised?

Chen Xuan immediately opened the store management section of the Butler APP and found the Performance Points rewards section according to the example in the rules.

He dragged downward and found that most of it was blank. Only the first option, "Shopkeeper Rating," was available.

And raising LV1 to LV2 only required four Performance Points.

This system was practically the same as workplace advancement... The higher the sales, the faster one climbed the ranks, and the higher the salary one received. The problem was that employees' salaries were paid by the boss. Since he was only the shopkeeper of a Branch Store, the Ability Store must have some organization resembling a boss or board of directors.

Yet the actual situation was not like that.

The handbook had even explained how ability rarity was classified. It specifically stated that legendary abilities like SSR abilities were unique, with a rarity of being the only ones remaining in the world.

In other words, the "???th shopkeeper" was the only one.

Abilities of all other levels, however, could exist in multiples.

White Grade abilities were directly described by the handbook as common abilities—not even worthy of being called R-grade.

Surely the Red Notebook couldn't be filled with complete nonsense, right? After experiencing a transaction firsthand, Chen Xuan no longer dared to casually question the truth of its contents.

Since worrying about it was pointless, he simply put the question aside and focused on raising his shopkeeper rating. Since it was a reward mechanism, climbing as high as possible certainly couldn't be a bad thing.

He clicked on Shopkeeper Rating, and an email template immediately popped up on the screen. It had no recipient and required the applicant to fill in a reason for promotion.

"What a hassle... Can't it just calculate the Performance Points directly?" Chen Xuan scratched his head helplessly and could only fill out the email honestly. As for the reason, he naturally praised himself in a tactful manner, as though he were writing an actual job application letter. He did not choose to deal with it carelessly, since he suspected that if the APP had made things this troublesome, there had to be a reason behind it.

After finishing, he clicked Send, and then there was no further response.

Clearly, this was not a real-time process.

Ding-dong~~

The wind chime suddenly rang.

"Hey, boss, are you here?" someone called out.

Another customer had come so soon?

Chen Xuan immediately put on a warm smile and looked up at the newcomer. "Welcome!"

The visitor was a middle-aged man around forty. He wore a vest on top and shorts below, with a pair of glasses on his face. Chen Xuan quickly assessed him. Hmm... in his prime, with thick and powerful limbs. Though dressed very plainly, perhaps he was the kind of person who hid his true identity among ordinary people. In any case, customers who walked into this Ability Store could never be ordinary.

So... what kind of ability did he desire?

"Give me a pack of Baisha, and a bottle of Tsingtao."

"Huh? Oh..."

"Do you have Mala Tang?"

"Uh... no."

"Then why do you have Mala Tang written on your signboard? Honestly."

"..."

Only after the uncle left did Chen Xuan recover. The process of serving the uncle had been even more unbelievable than serving Liu Shuyue!

—So this store was both an Ability Store and a general store serving Tianlu Residential Area?

The thought of cultivators and retired aunties visiting the store together in the future alone made his scalp go numb.

Wait...

Wasn't this terrible?

Chen Xuan suddenly realized that he was not only responsible for receiving customers seeking abilities but also had to keep the store running like a small supermarket. The difficulty had multiplied several times over!

The lines in the Shopkeeper's Rules stating that "all expenses of store operations shall be borne by the shopkeeper" and that "under no circumstances may the store go bankrupt" had clearly been traps laid in advance!

The next day, Chen Xuan did not go to work. He resigned directly.

His employer agreed readily enough. After all, since he had brought it up himself, they could even save this month's salary.

And Chen Xuan was now a shopkeeper. Naturally, he could not continue wasting time for the sake of one month's wages. He had to devote all his energy to the Ability Store.

After spending the entire morning pressing buttons on a calculator, he finally got a rough idea of the cost of running the store.

It was mainly divided into two parts. First was the cost of restocking all the goods. Cigarettes, alcohol, coffee, and snacks all had to be replenished after being sold. Second were fixed expenses such as rent, water, electricity, and natural gas.

That was right. This mysterious store, which operated around ability transactions, still had to pay water and electricity bills to the national utility companies. The rent also had a dedicated bank account from which it was deducted regularly every month.

After adding everything up, the store's monthly operating costs came to roughly thirty to forty thousand yuan.

Chen Xuan had initially thought that the goods he sold would be restocked automatically, but reality was completely different. After an entire night, no new cigarettes had appeared on the shelves, no new drinks had emerged in the refrigerator, and even the cloth used to wipe away the blood Liu Shuyue had left behind had not become clean and new again.

Aside from its ability to conduct transactions, it was no different from an ordinary neighborhood general store. The only difference was that its interior decoration was a little more refined.

Chen Xuan currently had fifty thousand yuan in savings.

These were the savings he had left after his failed business venture. Under normal circumstances, using them to cover rent and food would have been easy enough, but with his planned expenses now added in, he could last at most a month and a half before the store would have to close because of unpaid bills.

The situation was extremely urgent!

Performance Points were no longer the priority. The priority was real money.

After recognizing this reality, Chen Xuan immediately came up with an idea. Given his current income, working a job to support the store was out of the question. The most feasible method still had to be linked to abilities—using abilities to make money!

"Sell abilities directly?" Chen Xuan thought silently. He had spent the entire previous night testing things and had ultimately reached a conclusion not mentioned in the handbook: losing an ability did not mean casting the Forgetfulness Curse, nor did it affect normal life.

For example, after removing Can Sleep a Lot, he could still fall asleep at night. After trading away Broadly Read Through the Ages, he had not forgotten all of history. Common knowledge such as famous dynasties and historical figures still remained. He simply had no impression of their specific stories. He guessed that these keywords had probably stepped outside the scope of history and become part of his self-awareness. Moreover, once he opened a webpage and searched for those historical stories, he could remember them again.

This dispelled the last trace of concern he had about Ability Transaction.

Although he could currently only exchange abilities for abilities, nobody had stipulated that he could not charge an additional fee. Take Can Eat a Lot and Can Sleep a Lot, those two gray abilities. Their rarity might be at the very bottom, but for wealthy people who could not eat well or sleep soundly, they were absolutely precious abilities worth paying a large sum of money to obtain. Add an insignificant ability as a bonus, and such a transaction seemed quite easy to carry out.

The problem was that he did not know any such wealthy people, and with his own connections, it would be difficult to find a suitable target in a short time.

This idea was undoubtedly difficult to realize.

Chen Xuan naturally thought of a second method: using his abilities himself to earn his first fortune.